Coming Zune: A REAL MP3 Player
Posted by Matt Singley on July 22, 2006 under Uncategorized | 
5 Comments to Read
At the beginning of June I was ranting about my disdain for iPods. I like the idea okay, and I still think Apple has done a brilliant job of branding (they turn a normal posted audio file into a "podcast"…excellent job fellas…) but I’ve been waiting for something more. Something better. Something that I don’t need to use iTunes with.
Enter the Zune! It looks like the iPod killer from Microsoft is fully moving forward. Geeks have known about this for months, and I’ve seen "secret" photos of the device and read insider blogs. It looks like Microsoft is now going public with things, especially their new music "approach". Zune should be good because it’s won’t be as stinkin’ proprietary and narrowly focused as the iPod/iTunes marriage. Not because Microsoft doesn’t want to be proprietary, but they’ve lost enough anti-trust lawsuits to make your head spin, so they have to have it a little more cross-platform. In fact, in their recent proclamation about their direction and focus, they talk a lot about allowing third parties to easily integrate with their junk.
So I’m excited for Zune! I was just looking at my little MP3 player on the treadmill yesterday, noting that it doesn’t have much longer before it gives up the ghost. I’ve been hard on it. So anti-podites…stay tuned…Zune is coming by the end of the year hopefully.
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JClay said,
still LOVE my iPod. LOVE IT!!!
LOVE my Mac too!
Rick said,
It’s always good to have a competitor step up and be noticed. Who better than Microsoft to put the kind of R&D into something like this? Still, they’re going to have to give me plenty of reason to switch from my iPod/iTunes setup. Maybe they’re there, but I just haven’t seen them yet. It will be interesting to see the specs and features when it comes out.
BTW–I think the podcast is different from just an mp3 link in a blog in that iTunes will automatically download it and transfer it to your iPod. That said, I think the “podcast” jargon has quickly grown to include any mp3 within a blog post.
Kurt said,
Long live the IPOD! Nothing will ever over take its domination.
I will always stick with my PC computer…but no more crappy MP3 players for me!
Michael Sainz said,
So here is what I think. If Microsoft comes out with an MP3 player and its just competing toe to toe with the IPod, Apple will win. What Microsoft needs to do is what they do best, change the playing field…aka change the market. Instead of it just playing music, have it do something else…give it an edge that we as consumers haven’t seen yet in a portable device.
Here is the thing…Microsoft knows this.
What I think it will have is something stripped right from MySpace…a social networking component to it. Think of an IPod that can talk to other IPod’s around them physically via a wireless network or something. That’s just scratching the surface. What if you could download music without a PC? What if you could subscribe to a radio stations music RSS list and when you hear a song on the radio that you don’t know the name or group, you could easily look it up on the device, and of course have the option to download the track or album? Again…scratching the surface.
My New Role In Social Media Marketing and Strategy » Matt Singley | Social Media Optimization said,
[...] come as no surprise to anybody that has been reading this blog for any amount of time. I wrote my first Zune post in July 2006, and did the math about why Zune is superior in this June 2008 article (boy did I get [...]
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