Word of the year Editors at the New Oxford American Dictionary have selected "podcast" as their word of the year. Runners up were "bird flu," "persistent vegetative state" and "trans fat." Not exactly great company :-).

It seems an appopriate choice, though. This has been the year the MP3 player transitioned from gadget to necessity, at least for tech-savvy commuters. Podcasts are proliferating like rabbits right now and, while I don't expect most of them to live very long, the trend has clearly taken hold. The MP3 player is a legitimate new communications platform, perhaps the first one in 10 years (I'd say the cell phone was the last new platform). That's something to celebrate because new platforms invariably create create a launchpad for innovation. For example, there's a new company that will specialize in transcribing podcasts and selling ads against the transcriptions. It's just the beginning, folks.  ¶ 3:42 PM