Zune info

A few weeks ago, a few folks on the Zune team made a trip out to NYC for the Latin Alternative Music Conference. LAMC, as I had noted in my last post, LAMC is the only major conference geared toward Spanish-language alternative music, now in its ninth year. As top-level sponsor, Zune put on a few different shows, including the Celebrate Brooklyn show, featuring Brazilian Girls, Chicha Libre, Ticklah:

And Zune presented the Pepsi Blue Carpet Bash, featuring Tony Touch, Raul Campos (KCRW), Toy Selectah, DJ Zuzuku (a.k.a Blanquito Man) & Candice Cannabis, DJ Bitman vs. DJ Raff. We had a line halfway around the block to get in!

Zune also put on a booth at the show floor, educating show attendees about Zune, Zune Social, and Zune Marketplace.

The panel I participated in: BLOGUEANDO: How Latino-oriented and indie music blogs and bloggers are helping artists connect with new audiences and brands was a lot of fun! We talked about music, how to get started as a blogger, and what resonates with bloggers talking about Latin culture and music.

And lastly, I sat down with July Igntion artist Ximena Sariñana for a quick interview about technology and her involvement with Zune. Check it:

Video: Ximena Sarinana interview

For more on Ximena:

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Welcome, dear blog reader to a new weekly post here on Zuneinsider: So HOT Right Now: what the Zuneinsider Editors are Listening to (right now). So here goes:

• Justin is currently rocking out to Used and Abused by Danger Radio, saying, “I love the energy and catchy hooks.”
• Rob: Excited to download the season 3 premier of Sci Fi’s “Eureka” tonight. I have been downloading and watching a few of last season 2 episodes and have also been listening to the Eureka podcast hosted by the show’s star Colin Ferguson on my Zune, who I got to meet at Comic Con last week and he is a great guy. On the podcast side, I am watching the new “The Gong Show with Dave Attell” video podcast from Comedy Central.
• Matt has Ratatat’s new album LP3: “I love the entire album, but ‘Falcon Jab’ and ‘Shempi’ are my two favorites at the moment.”
• Cesar: listening to both the new Ratatat (thanks Matt!) and “Does This Mean You’re Moving On?” by The Airborne Toxic Event. They were a favorite at Capitol Hill Block Party last weekend!
• Jessica is currently listening to two albums by Gareth Emery, “the #31 DJ in the world, according to DJ Magazine.” Check out, The Podcast Annual 2007 or Baroque Records Remixes, and if you’re in Seattle he’s coming to Seattle next Thursday! Jessica adds: “My absolute favorite new song from 2007, ‘Off the World’ by Martin Roth and Alex Bartlett, appears on ‘The Podcast Annual 2007′ album. It gets my vote for the perfect dance track - strong beat, catchy melody, and epic breakdowns.”

Ok, enjoy the recommendations and have a great week everybody!

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Some cool news from the Zune community: our friends at ‘Rama celebrated a second birthday. Please Join me in congratulating them!

Speaking of second birthdays, this site just had a birthday, on July 21! That’s when we first announced Zune: July 21, 2006. Here’s the first post I wrote announcing it. Ah, the memories. Thanks to everybody out there in the community!

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You know the drill! Let’s get right into the music!

• First up, ‘generation posts an MP3 from British electro-rock group The Chap
• Pick up a Nine Inch Nails track, courtesy of our buddy at ‘tracks! (industrial rock)
• You know, dear blog reader, I’m a big fan of indie band Of Montreal. You should pick up a track over at Stereogum.
• And MOKB posts a Bon Iver track for you to love (rock)
• Head over to Aquarium Drunkard for a sweet Paul Westerberg track (rock)
• And last but certainly not not-awesome, GorillavsBear posts an unreleased version of “Scenario” by A Tribe Called Quest. Amazing hip hop. Wow. Just. I mean. Wow.

Ok, enjoy the music and have a great weekend everybody!

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I have to confess, I didn’t get the whole “badge” thing at first.

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I’m not a gamer. When I look at my Xbox profile, I see that I’ve played nine games. I think what that actually means is my son has played nine games on my Xbox Live account.

And then we got Rock Band, and everything changed. Suddenly, I started telling my kid to play on his own account, not mine. I didn’t want him (he’s WAY better than me; plays on expert on guitar, drums, and bass) to get achievements on my behalf.

I kind of lost interest after a while – getting put to shame by an eight-year-old regularly will do that – but I understood how some points and a icon displayed on a web site could change my behavior. Why else would I bother to do “Solo Tour,” when my kid had already unlocked all the songs?

In our Spring release, we introduced the idea of badges for artist and album plays. These first badges aren’t really about influencing your song plays, but instead allowing you to showcase your level of fan-dom.

We’ve gotten lots of feedback from you about the badges. Response is typically very positive initially…until you realize badges aren’t persistent. They drop off after 28 days – which means you need to keep your play level of a given artist up over time to maintain that badge. The idea here is to showcase your *current* listening habits; but I also understand your desire to showcase your all-time habits, too.

I’ve also heard people say we’re rewarding users who listen to the same thing, over and over. How about rewarding diversity?

Something I’ve noticed internally is that I haven’t seen a forum posting badge yet. I suspect that I may have set the levels too high.

As I look to expand the system, I’m considering a number of things.

Should there be a maximum number of available badges? Or should we create badges as ideas occur to us, constantly expanding the ecosystem?

Should there be other rewards that go along with badges? Maybe we could get an artist to provide a special download to everyone who has earned a Gold Power Listener badge for that artist. Would that be cool?

Are we going to try to change users’ behavior, or just reflect it? If we try to change it, in what ways are appropriate to maintain a healthy community, and will users try to game the system to get a badge or reward?

Fortunately, I can draw on the experience of other Microsoft teams – specifically Xbox Live and MSN Games – and learn from their experiences. But as always, I love hearing it straight from the customer. So tell me – what do you think of our badge system, and what do you think we should do to improve it?

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The folks at iHome have just released the first clock radio for Zune! Now you can wake to your favorite autoplaylist you just made! (see my last post)((elbow, elbow))

Looks like it’s finally time to ditch the alarm clock I have been using since 7^th grade…

From iHome’s website:

Meet the new ZN9, the world’s first clock radio for Zune. The ZN9 features several innovative solutions, including wake and sleep to your Zune^TM music or AM/FM radio presets, a 7-5-2 feature for separate weekday and weekend alarm times, and an extra large, backlit LCD display with dimmer.
With our Reson8 speaker chambers, you’ll be able to enjoy stereo sound around the clock. The new ZN9… treat yourself and your Zune right.

Specs:

• Wake or sleep to Zune, AM/FM Radio or buzzer
• Charges Zune while docked
• Auto-Set Clock sets itself
• Programmable Snooze
• High-fidelity stereo drivers in specially designed Reson8® speaker chambers deliver astounding clarity, depth, and power
• Gradual Wake and Gradual Sleep increase/decrease Alarm/Sleep volume so as not to startle the user
• Clean contemporary design complements the look of the Zune
• Dual alarm with AM/FM presets
• 7-5-2 feature for separate weekday and weekend alarm times

Links:

iHome Website:

http://www.ihomeaudio.com/products.asp?product_id=10250&dept_id=1006

First ZI post breaking the story:

http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2008/04/29/coming-soon-from-ihome-zune-dock-alarm-clock-dock.aspx

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One of the most passionately debated issues amongst people on the Social team in Zune is whether users should be allowed to hide plays.

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Right now, it’s not possible. We know that you played that Britney Spears song in between your plays of Tokyo Police Club *cough* Cesar *cough* and if you’ve got your plays set to share with the community (or even just your friends), other people know, too.

Every so often, someone brings it back up. Should we let users edit their play data?

On the “yes” side are the folks who think that users should be able to totally customize everything about themselves – they should have complete control over their musical identities in The Social. If they want to be known as an indie rocker, and don’t want people to know they’ve got a soft spot for Miley Cyrus, they should be able to do that.

On the “no” side are people who think Zune Social should reflect who you really are. Yeah, you’re usually rockin’ out to Dieselboy and Danny Byrd…but you’ve also got a little thing for Rihanna. It’s cool.

I sort of fall in the middle. I think it’s just fine that you know I play some cheesy stuff – but what happens when I’m trying something new out and I don’t like it? I want to be able to test music before I add it to my identity. I used to be able to do that with my Zune Pass by streaming it from the Marketplace, but in the Spring release we started counting streamed plays. (And frankly, the benefit of that to me – that I can stream from anywhere, without having to download content and use up one of my three machines for my Zune Pass – outweighs the negative of not being able to “test” music out.)

So what do you say? And if you say you want us to build an editing feature, where would it fall in your list of asks of the Zune Social team?

Oh and by the way, don’t forget to add me as a friend! And let me know if you think I should be embarrassed by my choice of music!

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Last time, I talked about how there’s something pure and wonderful about the feeling of discovering a new really good song.  One that you want to put on repeat, sing along to.  Maybe the lyrics have special meaning to you.  Maybe it was a song that a loved one once played for you.  Maybe it’s just catchy and you can’t get it out of your head.  But we all know that moment—aha!  I like this song.

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It’s the purest form of delight in the experience of music.  It’s the basic building block of the love of music.  I would argue that the moment I find a new song I love, it’s way more satisfying that playing my favorite song a million times.  As a developer on Zune, I’m always trying to pitch new features in Zune that make it easier to find new music to fall in love with. 

I did an informal survey and some basic observation and tried to learn how my friends discovered new music.  It was fairly consistent—overwhelmingly, they’d listen to the radio or talk about music with their friends.  Over and over again, the radio and friends would influence people into new songs.  This made me happy because it validated some of the decisions we had made with Zune—putting an FM radio into every Zune and building a great social experience where you can keep up and subscribe to what your friends are listening to. 

Lately I’ve been discovering a lot of new music by checking out what my girlfriend listens to.  She listens to a wide range of music with bands I’ve often never heard of, but it’s always good and I’m always delighted when I find new songs in my Zune inbox from her.  I’ll also go to her Zune social page and see what she’s been listening to lately, and make fun of her for listening to Hannah Montana amongst the cool and awesome songs she’s known for.  (Well at least until those plays start showing up on my card and you guys start making fun of me for that.  What can I say, she influences me.)  Being able to send music to your friends is my single most favorite feature we’ve put into Zune so far.

A common scenario for me is that I’ll download a playlist from the Zune marketplace and start listening to new music.  I’ll go into Now Playing mode by clicking the equalizer-looking button in the bottom right corner.  Whenever I find a song that I really like, I’ll click the ‘more about on this album’ link that appears under the album art.  This takes me to the Zune marketplace page where I can read bios and album reviews which link me off to other bands and albums and songs for me to check out.  Then I’ll click on the ‘related’ button to get to my favorite part—a list of the band’s influencers and other similar artists, as well as albums I should check out if I like this artist.  I have learned about countless new bands and classic albums just by exploring these fun features in the Zune marketplace.

Let me extend my informal survey to you.  How do you discover new music?

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Cesar here, back from vacation. I went to Prague, in the Czech Republic. It was fun, but I’m excited to be back to bring Zune news. Check out the ‘rama review of Incipio Metal Cases 

Both the cases and the review look pretty sweet. Check it out!

Also, a shameless plug to add me as a friend on Social. Right now Jessica is in the lead for one-way Friends and that’s gotta change. Come on! It’s me! I bring you free music on Fridays!

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Podcasting guru Paul Colligan writes about Zune and podcasting, around the New Media Expo coming up in a few weeks, and more. Check it out!

And speaking of Zune and podcasts, did you see the CNet article that named Zune the best MP3 player for podcasts? Not bad!

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Hope everyone is having a great week! Some quick updates coming to Zune support over the next few months. The support team here at Zune is looking to make the support system more efficient, combining online resources, phone support, and the community assistance from the Zune forums.

You’re also going to see additional online tools to help with support issues, tips and tricks, and how-to questions. Because we’re going to be adding more online and self-help support modules, the phone support system is going to shift to trouble-shooting and problem solving: issues with installation; setup; wired connectivity and sync; device repair issues; or issues with Zune Marketplace. For more details, head over to the support section on Zune.net

If you haven’t already, check out the Zune User’s Guide. It’s a great how-to on all things Zune, like software, Zune Marketplace, device questions and more.

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Greetings, the internet, and welcome back to another edition New Music Friday! If you’re joining us for the first time, here’s how it works: I link to free n clear MP3s for your enjoyment out on the web. You, dear blog reader, click through the links and download them, then load them on your Zune. Ready? okletsgo:

• First up this week, ‘Tracks has a track from Seattle rock legends Mudhoney.
• If you like Magnetic Fields, you should check out Paramount Styles, over at Spinner (rock)
• Head over to Stereogum to pick up a great Fiery Furnaces track (rock)
• I love hip hop icon Murs, and you should love him too. Don’t know him? You can pick up a Murs / 9th Wonder track, over at GvB.
• Head over to Music For Robots to pick up a track from Londong/Reykyavik group Fields (rock).
• And last but certainly not not-awesome, check out the Avett Brothers MP3, from MOKB (americana/rock)

Ok, enjoy the music and have a great weekend

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Zune Marketplace team has just started posting FREE to download videos from Comic-Con 2008 that are being produced by the Xbox Live Marketplace team.  I am making this post from the Xbox Live control center that is across the street from the San Diego Convention Center.  Zune and MSN are the only other places besides Xbox that will allow you to get access to this great daily content coming out of Comic-Con.  I am hearing here that Comic-Con will have about 150,000 attendees over the four day run (July 24-27) in San Diego, California. 

Just download the Zune Marketplace software to get access to these great Comic-Con 2008 videos in the Zune Marketplace software on your laptop or desktop pc and or on your Zune.

Zune will also be giving away ten “Heroes TV Show” logo branded Zune 80 players as part of a cast panel and collectable “Heroes Villians” poster giveaway promotion here at Comic-Con. The panel is on Saturday from 10:30-11:45am in the largest hall here.  NBC is expecting over 6,500 people to attend this one panel at the show.

I have also attended a few comics related podcasting panels here the first day or so. Very cool indeed. 

Posted by Rob Greenlee at Comic-Con 2008

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I recently converted a good friend of mine over to Zune. He has been an avid iPod user for years, and is now singing the praises! It’s funny, when I convert someone over to Zune, they always seem to find a feature that they love, that I tend to take for granted. He came up for a visit this weekend and he was showing me all of the new songs he had found on ZunePass and was showing some pictures of an event we attended last December. I didn’t have most of these pictures and I wanted them in my collection, so I connected his Zune to my PC as a guest device, went to the device view, and started right-clicking the pictures I wanted, and chose to copy them to my collection. Pretty soon I had all the pictures in my collection and we were viewing them on my 24-inch monitor. “Sweet!” He exclaimed, “Does it work with music, too?” “Indeed!” I replied, and I then grabbed a few albums from Radiohead’s Towering above the Rest collection from his Zune and added them to my computer. “I could never do this with my iPod, this is awesome!” *note: I already own the album.

And there it was. I could have sold him on the Zune last year had I told him about reverse sync, a feature that I totally take for granted, but is yet another differentiator for Zune. With reverse sync, you can copy any music, videos, or pictures (just no Podcasts or playlists at the moment) from your Zune device, right onto your PC- extremely helpful if you have multiple PCs and more than one Zune. Sorry kids, you can’t do that with iTunes.

Reverse sync, a graphical journey…

First connect your device and click the device icon in the lower left corner:

Now, once you have clicked the device icon, this will take you to the device view where you view all of the content on your device. Notice how the background changes and takes on a hue that’s similar to the color of your device:

Once here, now you can select the different headings to view your music, videos, pictures, podcasts, and friends. You reverse sync in much the same way as your perform a regular sync, just drag and drop a song, album, artist, genre, video, or picture to the collection (computer-like icon in the lower left corner.) Or, you can also right-click any of those objects and choose “copy to my collection”:

Voila! The content you have chosen has been copied over to your PC…

Reverse sync is not only quite useful for sharing media with friends, it’s also great knowing that you always have an easy backup plan to restore your media if you get a new computer, or you have a drastic hard drive crash. I tend to use it most often when moving content between 2 computers, say my home and office machines. I can take my Zune, connect it to my office machine as a guest device, go to the device view, then drag and drop a few albums to the little computer icon in the left corner (you can also right-click and choose “copy to my collection”), and voila, new albums on my office machine. Note that you don’t have to connect as a guest to perform a reverse sync, I just mention it as that is the most prevalent mode reverse sync is used in.

So, if you are already hip to the reverse sync, good for you, and feel good about having a Zune! If not, move some files to a new machine, share a home movie with a friend, or just otherwise make your iPod friends jealous that you have yet another feature that they don’t.

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Head over to Zune Marketplace this week for a cool freebie: John Matthias’ track “Evermore.” The album, Stories from the Watercooler, is an blend of electronics and accoustics, and you can click this icon  for a deeplink.

And while you’re in Zune Marketplace, be sure to check out the Sub Pop Collection: A to Z. It’s 220 standout tracks from Seattle label Sub Pop’s twenty year history. Best of all:  all the tracks are available on your Zune Pass.
Deeplink here:

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Mexican singer/actress has released the track “Mediocre Piano” exclusively on Zune Marketplace as a companion feature to the full album download of her latest release Mediocre.
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A new rumor regarding Nokia working with the Zune team to give its customers access to the Zune Marketplace is making the rounds. According to the source, the deal will not be exclusive to Nokia, meaning that Apple may one day get some serious competition on the iTunes-iPod Touch-iPhone front.
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News Analysis. As usual, Microsoft’s annual 10-K filing is a treasure trove of information.
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An alleged Microsoft source today claims that Nokia is developing phones that would be compatible with the Zune Marketplace. While the project isn’t said to involve custom handset design, Nokia in the suggested plan would integrate its software with.
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So how cool would this be? I like Nokia products and I like my Zune … imagine combining the two. Hmmm, very interesting!
[indent] [left][i]Image: http://mobilitysite.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/nokzun2-thumb.
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