After receiving a flood of responses to my name that genre puzzle, I've decided on the term screencast. Here were the choices:
| Gavin Terrill | democam |
| Robert Leftwich | activevid, castware, dynamivid, dynavid, movieware, narrationware, prescast, presencast, softcast, vidarration, videoactive, vidware |
| Shiraz Kanga | smoovie, screedio |
| David Ascher | product interview |
| Joseph McDonald | appbeam, appcast, appflick, appshow, appstream, displaycast, livescreen, screenbeam , screencast, screenflick, screenreel, screenscenes, screenshow, screenshow, screenstream, windowbeam |
| Luke Matkins | moviecapture, movieshot, democam |
| Jason Brome | democast |
| M. Sean Gilligan | screen movies, video how-to's |
| Deeje Cooley | screencast |
| Kartik Agaram | democast |
| Brian Tol | screenblogging |
| Frank Horowitz | helppeg |
| Ross Wm. Rader | cinecord |
| Hugh Emberson | videmo |
| Thomas Passin | democast, demovid |
| Paul Beard | democasting, demosharing, screensharing, udelling |
| Ubaldo Huerta | softreel, software reel |
| Peter Drayton | appcast, appcap, appstream, appshow |
| Mark Kinzie | appshow |
| Bruce Krautbauer | screen video, screening video, video screening |
| Andrew Grubb | converstream |
| Eduardo Molteni | videodemo, demovideo, videoshow |
| James Cole | usage capture |
| Simon Birrell | advid |
| Hinnerk Haardt | softmovie, screenmovie, screentake |
| Greg Wilson | smoovie |
| Chris Vance | democast |
| Tiago Simà es | uldeo |
| Gavin Brelstaff | screenplay |
| Marc Eisenstadt | democast |
Some terrific coinages here! In the end, although democast (6) and appshow (3) were proposed more often than screencast (2), I've decided to use the latter. Here's my thinking. Although I find appshow compelling, I'm not sure that app is an evocative term for a wider audience. And while democast has all the right connotations, it packs an extra syllable and your mouth has to work harder to say it.
Now obviously, people can and will call these presentations whatever they want. But when I invite someone to help me make one, or when I refer to one, I'm going to call it a screencast. Thanks to Joseph McDonald and Deeje Cooley, who both made that suggesion, and also to everyone who played along. The response to this naming game went beyond what I'd expected, and was really gratifying.
Finally, David Ascher reminded me that in the end it's not the name that matters, it's the process.
Former URL: http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2004/11/17.html#a1116