Life is grand

Just been reading two reviews of Microsoft’s Zune player and while it isn’t terrible it isn’t going to convert any iPod users or be an iPod killer in the stores.

The NYT review[^] is a bit biased IMO (I own an iPod too but jeez author, get a life) but it brings up some frankly weird points about the Zune:

1. The Zune has WiFi, fantastic. Except you can only use it to send songs to other Zunes. You can’t connect to a PC, network or any other WiFi device. WTF?
2. You can’t use it as an external HD. Sorry folks, no USB drive in Explorer for the Zune. WTF?
3. The screen is bigger. Except it has the same resolution as an iPod.
4. Real world testing shows poorer battery life than an equivalent iPod (two hours less.) And yet the Zune is bigger and heavier.
5. No podcast support from what I can tell. Crikey.
6. Songs are $0.99 but you have to buy credit bundles of $5 or more.
7. Songs are listed as costing 79 “points” which sounds cool except 79 points will cost you $0.99. Now that is marketing.
8. The software media player is seemingly a stripped down Windows Media Player. You can’t use WMP with your Zune.
9. Getting all your existing music onto a Zune is a long conversion process if it works at all.

The other review[^].

It seems OK but nothing to rush out for.

In a nice move by Apple you can now buy a red iPod nano and support the Bono backed (RED) campaign. $10 is donated to the AIDS cause for each (PRODUCT)^RED you buy at $199.

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…

1. Queens of the Stone Age - Mosquito Song*
2. The White Stripes - Slicker Drips
3. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
4. Morcheeba - World Looking In
5. Queen - I’m Going Slightly Mad
6. Kooks - Time Waits
7. The Stone Roses - I Wanna Be Adored
8. The Stone Roses - Fools Gold
9. Kooks - I Want You
10. The Streets - War of the Sexes

* What a classic.

Ed makes a good point on my list of attention sucking silos:

Apple, iTunes and his Nano are all potentially-connected segments of the same silo

Semi-ideally*, Ed is right. Apple is the silo and Apple is all knowing of my Apple.com, Apple Store, iTunes and nano silos.

But who here has worked in a large company with large databases spread across a large range of concepts? Ten to one the arse of Apple doesn’t know what the head of Apple has stored on me. Ten to one there is not a central Apple identity and attention server that aggregates all my Apple activites. I’ll bet my iTunes attention data is separate to my Apple Store attention data. They are probably running different systems in there with no linkage.

I don’t even need to go into Apple HQ to know this. My nano and my iTunes’ silos are already broken. I use last.fm and think it is a wonderful service. Before I got my nano I played 90% of my daily music on my laptop. That 90% was reported through iTunes to last.fm. However I now have a nano and that “what music has Paul played today” link has been broken. When I jack my nano into my laptop every evening iTunes does not suck down the play data and send it onto last.fm**. I actually cannot see what iTunes does with my nano data.

Another example is iTunes and the music I have bought elsewhere. I’ve ripped all my “physical” CDs into iTunes yet when I go to the Apple Music Store and check out the “recommended” lists I will often find recommendations to albums I already own. iTunes and the Apple Music Store are not communicating. They have all this play and asset data on me yet fail to link it all up.

So while they may conceptually be segmented areas of one mega-silo they are effectively separate silos.

* I say semi because ideally my “Apple” silo wouldn’t be one. Currently there is a silo there though and if it has to remain then ideally it should not be segmented.

** Technically there are plug-ins for iTunes that link your iPod to your last.fm account. I have tried at least three and could not get them to work. Considering I am a developer you’d think I could figure it out.

1. The Beatles - Hello Goodbye
2. Rob Zombie - Dragula
3. Kooks - Ooh La
4. The White Stripes - Broken Bricks
5. The Beatles - Get Back
6. Queen - We Will Rock You
7. Fatboy Slim - Sho Nuff
8. Queen - Princes of the Universe
9. Team Sleep - The Passportal
10. The White Stripes - Passive Manipulation

A Tuesday list because I left my iPod at home yesterday.

1. Arctic Monkeys - Still Tak you Home
2. The White Stripes - As Ugly as I Seem
3. Faithless - Tarantula
4. Queens of the Stone Age - No One Knows
5. The Strokes - Evening Sun*
6. The White Stripes - Little People
7. Skunk Anansie - I’m Not Afraid
8. David Bowie - Nature Boy
9. Arctic Monkeys - Mardy Bum
10. Snow Patrol - Headlights On Dark Roads

* This song makes me want to kill myself. Horrid.

1. Les Negresses Vertes - Face a la Mer (Massive Attack Remix)
2. Belle & Sebastian - Morning Crescent
3. The Strokes - Juicebox
4. We Are Scientists - Worth the Wait
5. Rachid Taha - Barra Barra
6. New Funky Generation - The Messenger
7. The White Stripes - St. James Infirmary
8. Nicole Kidman* - One Day I’ll Fly Away
9. Snow Patrol** - Chasing Cars
10. Oasis - Let There Be Love

* Seriously, Nicole Kidman. It is from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. Lovely song.

** I am starting to like Snow Patrol more. Still not a band that sticks out though.

1. The White Stripes - I Want to Be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart
2. Massive Attack - Safe From Harm
3. Beck - Diamond Dogs
4. Robbie Williams - Come Undone
5. Skunk Anansie - Good Things Don’t Always Come to You
6. Arctic Monkeys - Dancing Shoes
7. The White Stripes - Black Math
8. Garbage - The Trick is to Keep Breathing
9. The Strokes - Juicebox
10. The Chalets - Beach Blankets

1. Garbage - Medication
2. Garbage - Temptation Waits
3. Kooks - Seaside
4. The White Stripes - Cannon
5. Jose Padilla - Come Back
6. Lamb - Trans Fatty Acid [Kruder & Dorfmeister Remix]
7. Kooks - Jackie Big Tits
8. Mari Boine - Gula Gula [Chilluminati Mix]
9. Arctic Monkeys - When the Sun Goes Down
10. We Are Scientists - Can’t Lose