New Zune media service coming to XBOX.

I tell people at work about the Zune Pass and they think I am joking. As I've said before, I really dig the service and plan on keeping it for the foreseeable future. It's just to easy to find a band I like and download their entire collection. Unfortunately, Microsoft is terrible at marketing. Great products go unnoticed while seemingly they try to push crappy products on us.

Microsoft branded the Zune experience as "the social". I now see why. I really does provide tools to socially network with users and bands. Unfortunately, there's not enough of an install base for something like that to work.

I plan on getting one Zune HD. However, if the Zune Pass would work on an iPhone I would change my purchasing decision. Windows Media Player reads the Zune Pass library. I wonder if a WMP app can be built for iPhone. Or, I wonder if Apple will roll out a Zune Pass killer. If they do, I hope they improve the iTunes software. Microsoft really got the Zune software right. It's perhaps the best app I've used from them (well, non-video game app).

I wish I could carry around more than 32 GB on the Zune HD. Realistically, I probably only listen to about 20 GB of music in the month at most, so I can tell the Zune software to sync certain songs on the device and I'll be good.

Looking forward to E3 next week.

This Zune HD intrigues me...

Lame. The Zune needs to do for video what the iPod/iPhone has done for music.

I don't want to buy a separate dock to play HD movies on my TV. I want stream HD movies from my Zune through my network to my 360 without buying a bulky separate dock. I want the Zune to steam Instaplay Movies from Netflix.

I want it to stop trying to catch up to the iPhone and start paving its own path.

Mintz quote: "Lame. The Zune needs to do for video what the iPod/iPhone has done for music. I don't want to buy a separate dock to play HD movies on my TV. I want stream HD movies from my Zune through my network to my 360 without buying a bulky separate dock. I want the Zune to steam Instaplay Movies from Netflix. I want it to stop trying to catch up to the iPhone and start paving its own path."

---

Paving it’s own path? I’ve been carrying around a 3G device in my pocket for the last few years that show HD movies and stream Netflix and flash video. It even has exchangeable batteries and expandable memory. But no one cares.

The current Zune doesn’t require a dock to transfer video. Just a data cable. I imagine the Zune HD will be the same way. But, if for some reason I was going to use the Zune to play video on a TV, I’d want a dock to hold and secure it.

Don’t want to buy extra stuff like a dock? Apple makes a good living off of people buying extra stuff to support their devices. I mean Apple makes people pay $30 to run DVI out of their MacBooks. Redonk. Anyway, I don’t think the dock is the real issue here. It’s really about the service and the offerings it will have; not about hardware --- although the Zune been able to do things the iPod couldn’t do for a while (like FM radio, WiFi, wireless syncing, purchasing music from WiFi, and sharing with others over WiFi).

The Zune’s problem is that no one cares. The Zune Pass service would be all the rage if iTunes had a similar service.

It was the same way when Apple released the iPod and iPhone. The iPod was an over priced piece of hardware that was inferior to other media players on the market. Other players did more, played more, had higher capacities and were cheaper. Culture be damned, the iPod became the most popular MP3 player over night. Why? iTunes was revolutionary as was that silly click wheel button that went through several changes before it was removed. iTunes = a ton of legal music in one place. It wasn’t about the hardware, it was about the service; even if the hardware could only play certain file types and was locked down with DRM. It was kind of the same deal with the iPhone: it wasn’t 3G capable, had a small camera with no video recording support, no MMS, had no 3rd party apps, questionable corporate features and was very expensive and locked to an exclusive carrier. Yet it had cool on-board software features, a slick conductive multitouch screen, integration with iTunes, and a very cool look. But more than all that, it has the support and approval of the people that mattered: the people that talk about stuff like that.

Meanwhile Nokia sold more phones in a week than Apple sold in almost two years. AT&T even decided to charge above and beyond the normal data fees for the same exact service they provide to other phones. Yet, what did everyone talk about? iPhone.

I don’t think Microsoft can compete with something as successful as the iPhone given the downsides the iPhone had. Maybe Microsoft should distance their products from “MS” and “Windows”.

(By the way, this kind of hype marketing slash adoption happens all the time. Facebook adds more users in a couple of weeks than Twitter currently has users. Yet, Twitter gets major media attention, the media embraces it; mostly because Twitter seems to be more fun and simpler than Facebook).

Microsoft got the service right on Zune when Zune Pass came out. They got the Zune marketplace software right as well; it is very elegant and makes finding more music fun. They didn’t get the marketing right and, well as you put it, they were late to the game and were forced to play catch up. In many way’s they’ve caught up. In some ways, Microsoft has been ahead for a while and no one has cared. But as in most products they release, they don’t get the support that Apple products get.

Perhaps Microsoft should invent some kind of anti-open-source marketplace (a closed system), start charging a few bucks for every app installed on each phone and media player, then highly restrict who gets to publish those apps, and charge the developers a fee and tell them how they should program their apps. Maybe then they’ve get more popular. But then, they’d only be playing catch up to Apple.

It doesn't matter if you're a great musician, have a great band, are an excellent author, or are a great craftsman. If you don't have great publishers, then you'd better not hope that a large response or acceptance will follow. Creators aren't publishers. And publishing of products is a big issue with Microsoft.

The new Zune HD will be OK. It won’t be revolutionary. It won’t change the game or marketshares. It may not even force Apple to bat an eye (hopefully the Microsoft product will put pressure on Apple to make better iTouchs and iPhones though). The only reason I plan on getting a Zune HD is because we could use another Zune.

If you aren’t getting Zune Pass, then there’s no reason to get a Zune HD. An iTouch, which will support cool third party apps, will be the better product for almost every user. (However, there is a chance that the Zune HD will support the thousands and thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of apps available on Windows phones.

The real story at E3 when it is all said and done, I think, will be that Zune music will be accessible on the XBOX 360. It will be like having iTunes available on the XBOX 360. This will drastically increase the power of the Zune marketplace. XBOX gamers should be ready for Zune Pass to be marketed down their throats. And those XBOX Marketplace Points? They are technically called Microsoft Points for a reason. The points that you buy to purchase games, movies, and subscriptions are already redeemable in the Zune Marketplace; have been for years.

The other big story will be that the Zune Marketplace will be getting TV and Movie support. It’s only a limited selection of videos right now. (This may be due to licensing). This is why you probably won’t see Netflix support on the Zune. Microsoft wants you to buy XBOX 360’s for your living room; not Zunes. They want you to buy XBOX Live subscriptions so that you’ll be plugged into that marketplace. (XBOX Live is very profitable). They want you to use Netflix on the XBOX 360. They want you to use the Zune Pass through your XBOX (been possible since Zune Pass came out years ago).

I agree, it would be cool to carry around movies on the Zune or phone.

The only way I see this happening is if Microsoft rolls out a major Zune marketplace update that I’ve been waiting for; free TV show downloads with the Zune Pass. I’d download a ton of TV shows if they were included in the Zune Pass. It would really shack up the DVR business.

Maybe that is where Microsoft should go. The Zune is to replace the DVR. Just subscribe to your series through the Zune Marketplace and guess what? The Zune HD support HD video; just like your DVR does.

Movies on the Zune Pass? I can only dream of something like that. I’d love to see it. Perhaps that would best be rolled out in the form of a Zune Pass Pro (ZPP). With ZPP, you’d pay, I don’t know, say $25 per month and get unlimited monthly use of ALL media on the Zune Marketplace. This means, you can take movies with you as you go. This would be another reason why Microsoft wouldn’t want you to view Netflix on our Zune. It would be conflicted with their own service. Wait! Has that ever stopped Microsoft who had a few different version of the same software with minor changes?

You mention that many other pieces of hardware have done what the iPhone can do. I maintain that if that was completely true in all aspects, then the iPhone wouldn't be so popular and considered revolutionary. Almost every guest host on TWIT has an iPhone. We're talking every tech geek that has millions of $ that can have any hardware he/she wants: Kevin Rose, Jason Calicanis, Veronica Belmont...everyone. Is there some social pressure to own an iPhone in those circles--sure. Does Apple do a better job of marketing than MS--sure. However, I don't think Apple is just a great marketing company. They make a great product that has outdone the competition because of the sum of it's parts. I agree that plenty of hardware did things before iPhone, but nothing did it like iPhone.

In short, I generally think that the argument "___ is better than ___ but nobody cares" is evidence that ___ isn't really better than ___, because if it was then people would care.

Midnight wrote: "In short, I generally think that the argument "___ is better than ___ but nobody cares" is evidence that ___ isn't really better than ___, because if it was then people would care."

Well,

1) Did anyone really care about Ron Paul? He seemed to offer a pretty good product. He didn't have a chance because the right people talked about him in the wrong way.

2) In general, I think in today's climate the fittest do not have a straight path to success.

(BLOG) You are a good writer. No one* cares because no one reads your writings.

* By no one, I mean a drop in the bucket compared to, well, the very people (who are entertainers, by the way) you reference in your comment. Or even a drop in the bucket compared to even average bloggers with little popularity. I think you write better than a gajillion writers. This doesn't mean that anyone is going to consume your product. Consumers have to find your product. You have to compete with all of the other crap on the internet and compete for their time. And they are not being told that you have a good product. They are being told that a small percentage of writers are offering the good product. Then the hype cycle begins. X says that Y is good that says that Z is good that says that X is good. This is easily seen in the WordPress world as I'll mention in a sec.

(I think the traditional rules of economics, consumerism, and capitalism are evolving quickly as we find our way through this age of instant communication. I think uniqueness and individuality are being eroded by the noise of the firehose blowing water from the hydrant.)

(BLOG PRODUCT) WordPress is the most popular blog publishing software because the people that use WordPress talk about WordPress. There are alternative open source software out there than scale better, are easier to use, do things that bloggers want to do. People want to like WordPress because people like WordPress.

(OPEN SOURCE BLOG PRODUCT) The very internet you read is run on open source software (MySQL, PHP, and Linux). The whole web embraced the open source movement. They also detested Microsoft for their tactics and, well, not offering their products as open source software. This surely has help perpetuate the tone that Microsoft is evil. So when Apple rolls out the closed system of the App Store (charging money for things that were free, charging money for developers to even look at the SDK, taking a % cut from their earnings, and preventing the developers from even talking about their products while unreleased), well, those same people embraced Apple for it. The only thing that will end up being good for will be the major device manufacturers and communications companies over the next decade. The consumers are going to be trained to consume.

Maybe someone will make an app to tell me why the app store is better than a truly free market that available on other platforms.

Don't me wrong. The iPhone is a great piece of hardware. As was the iPod. If I had an iPhone today it would be a joy to use (ok, 'cept for the lack of a landscape keyboard). But the reason iPod was successful was because of the software and services that Apple offered and not the hardware.

I've got an idea for a book stuck in my head about technology advances happening "out of phase". Look at Twitter. WTF. I mean, over a decade over the technology was invented for random persons to make random websites. It used to be expensive to do it. Like, thousands and thousands of dollars per month. And then it became free. And then people could upload gigs of information. And now Twitter is allowing people to upload only 140 characters. Twitter is a social phenomenon; not a technical phenomenon. The things that Twitter does were done 10 years ago by companies. Uploading and viewing from cellphones is old news. This is why I think that the rules are changing with the world of entrepreneurship and capitalism. Social acceptance is more important than features and applicability.

Your Ron Paul analogy is sound. Perhaps marketing and social hype are more influential than I suspect. It's just hard for me to accept that the market will refuse a superior product because of illogical reasons. Of course, my premise is that the market acts logically. A smart lady once said that "There are no contradictions. If you think you've found one then check your premises." That's probably the answer.

Im really hyped about the zune hd. Im definately getting one and shyzza said he might get one for the zune pass.

----------------------------------------------
THE POWER OF THE X

For family members, the Zune Pass gets even more of a value since you can connect up to 3 Zunes and 3 PCs on one account for $15 a month plus you get to keep 10 songs.