Jon Udell asks others to help him name a genre:

As I continue to explore the idea of making movies of software, I’ve been thinking that this medium needs a name… So what should I call the medium — or, as Eric Hanson says, the genre — that I’ve been developing? TechSmith, the company that makes Camtasia Studio, calls it screen recording. Microsoft calls it screen capture. Qarbon uses the term viewlet. The generic term I’ve been using until now is screen video. But none of these is especially catchy, and none really conveys what I’m aiming for. The name I’m seeking would describe:

• A progressively-downloadable video,
• which shows interaction with software,
• as is narrated by a presenter,
• or as emerges in a conversation.

We use TechSmith’s Camtasia a lot for this… for example I’ve done some BuddySpace demos/tutorials this way, and Simon Buckingham Shum has created some nice Compendium demos/tutorials that he calls Instructional Screen Movies. Although we don’t always stream these progressively in the way Jon is describing, the whole genre involve demos in so many cases that I think the label ‘demo-casting’ or ‘democasting’ is a pretty decent fit. Whaddaya think, Jon?

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