[CharlesW]

There's no point now, I suppose.

The history was that "podcasting" was an open medium, "open" being the point. A "podcast" was a show (e.g. "Smartless"). "Episodes" were audio or video files combined with metadata that lived in the podcast's RSS. Anybody could play in that ecosystem.

Now "podcasting" means anything/nothing. "Podcasts" are shows. "Podcasts" are episodes. "Podcasts" are things that increasingly need a proprietary app to play.