Zune Zune Zune
It’s not another Mazda advert but instead LSD inspired rabbits for an iPod competitor from Microsoft. Plenty of noise out there about it so I won’t rehash. I just wanted to comment on two aspects.
First is this comment in a Seattle Weekly article:
To create a mass product, Microsoft can’t design products for the “blue badgers,” as Microsofties call themselves
Strange that. Google is successful with GMail, Google Calendar and others because the very people who make them, use them. Jobs of Apple uses an iPod, he is passionate about them and I’ll bet many other Apple employees are too. There is a strong ethos in all good companies to make products that you use and like. Many of the good Web 2.0 sites out there were created by someone with a personal itch to scratch.
Afterall, blue badgers listen to music, right?
The other is the WiFi sharing feature. Basically you can transmit any song on your Zune to another Zune user in physical range. That user can then listen to the song for three days. If they like it enough, they can buy it.
Cool idea and the technology must be fantastic. But just how many people are going to be in a situation where they can use it? It will take some time to get enough Zunes out there to make public-space sharing a real option. In the technology company I work for in Ireland only a handful even have iPods. The one guy I know who will buy a Zune has just started working for Microsoft, in Seattle.
The rest of us share music over the web with people we often have never met but are good friends with. People well out of WiFi range.
It is one of those cool demo features that work in setup situations at tradeshows and product launches. Nice to have it but…
September 16th, 2006 at 1:01 am
Hey P,
Hope RailsConf is going well. Now, onto Zune. You know my opinion about music players… I don’t need one.. I don’t listen to all that much music these days and I thik I would only get one for podcasts. Also, I don’t see myself as biased in this “arena” even though I just joined MS…. so, I just wanted to point to my comment on Tom Raferty’s blog here: http://www.tomrafteryit.net/zune-where-are-the-podcasts … if there are many people out there like my sister then Zune just might do well. Who knows.
B
P.S. not sure when you are back in the deise but be in the 3 shippes around 9:30 on Sat night if you can make it!!!!
September 16th, 2006 at 1:30 am
Nice comment from your sisters on the Zune. It might work but it will take more than one or two in a group to get it going. They aren’t cheap and getting a bunch of friends to buy a $300 buck device to share songs is a tall order.
And I was just ribbing you about your bias ;) You could… ummm… use it as a file transfer device (30gig with WiFi?)
As for the three shippies I will try. Plane lands in Dublin at 18:30 that night and then have to drive down to the deise boy.