While the medium itself goes back to 2004, podcasting took a big step towards the mainstream when support for podcasts was added to iTunes in June of 2005. And love it or hate it, the iTunes Store and its podcast directory are likely to be central to the world of podcasting for a long time to come. In that spirit, the iTunes staff put together a feature page called “10 Years of Podcasts.” This special section focuses on podcasts that have been deemed “Essential” and as you can probably guess, it includes a lot of stuff from the usual suspects like NPR, The Nerdist, and TWiT. From iTunes:

Back in 2005, we were thrilled to bring podcasts to iTunes – and a decade later, we’re as excited as ever. We’ve gone from 3,000 shows to hundreds of thousands, seen the medium explode internationally, and watched hits like Serial and WTF with Marc Maron capture audiences like never before. As the world of podcasts has changed, podcasts have changed the world. Celebrate their success with our favorite shows over the past decade, spanning everything from longtime classics to emerging superstars.

It’s worth noting that this list isn’t celebrating shows that have been around for ten years. Rather, it’s a collection of shows from the last ten years that are still ongoing and (more importantly) liked by the iTunes Podcasts team.

Congratulations to iTunes on its tenth year in podcasting! Now, how soon ’til we get that user portal?