Microsoft’s forthcoming Zune player is shooting to be the life of the party, allowing users to create mobile social networks and stream music to nearby friends or strangers, according to a government regulatory filing.
Zune owners can act as their own DJ, sending streaming music content to up to four other devices, according to documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission . With the device’s wireless networking abilities turned on, people can send and receive photos, as well as “promotional copies of songs, albums and playlists,” according to the filing, made public Thursday.
Microsoft…had said Zune would have built-in Wi-Fi abilities, but had not yet said what it planned to allow users to do with their wireless connection.
The software maker said it will have one model available in time for this year’s holiday season. It has also said it expects the Zune effort to take years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
As regards the DJ feature, people have the option of turning the feature on or off, as well as of choosing whether to stream to any nearby Zune user or only to people on their friends list. If the DJ setting is on, people don’t need to do anything else to allow others to listen to their music. The music sent is the same as what the DJ is listening to; if they stop listening, the stream is interrupted.
So, do you want to be the DJ for your office? Commuter pool? Family picnic?
Is this the feature that’s going to motivate you to buy a Zune?
Great, a new way to spread viruses and malware wirelessly. “I just downloaded this, check it out.” Who the hell puts this on my Zune, it’s playing music backwards now. That’s a feature.
Nope. The onlything that will motivate me to buy another walkman is about twenty bands all doing albums I want to hear at the same time.
I often wonder if my lack of interest in popular culture at the moment is, in fact, a sign that I am aging, rather than because we’re merely in a culturally dead period, like the late 80’s.
I still dig my computer as much as I ever did, but I’ve got to admit, I’m glad that doesn’t extend to cell phones and mp3 players and blackberries and all the other little devices that constitute necessity for some people.
If the Zune takes off like a bat out of hell tomorrow and everyone from here to the moon has one, the most useful function it will provide for me is a visual cue so I know who to avoid.
The only way Zune will succeed is if Microsoft combines it with a service as great as iTunes.
What a useless feature. If I have my own Zune player, with my own music on it, why do I care about listening to someone else’s streamed music?
Maybe Microsoft or some hack will start Zapster and all your zunes will be erazed. Back up your Zune to your Zip drive.
Have you ever pondered that the way people use mobile phone with bluetooth always exchanging dirty pics and movies and the success of the iPod fostered the Zune?… M$ just thought, what if the “walkman” could not only show movies but exchange them too.
My prediction?
M$ will not make a site/online service like iTunes and so will not moneytize the Zune to full extent. But if someone builds an online service specifically for the Zune selling clips and tidbits the way they sell if for mobile phones, it will (Zune) have a chance of success…Once more, we’re in the hands of the Porn industry…
No, simply because it’s called “Zune”. What a dorky name.
YOU COVERED UP A BORIS PIC…..Boooooo!!!
Zune is a totally dorky concept. What would be interesting is software or a website that let users design the next big portable devices. It would sell well because the design would reflect the users, not the dorks. You could design a whole line of devices, instead of having these limited choices. With flash memory, you can offer a wide selection of designs. We are stuck in a Apple or Microsoft time warp. With rapid prototyping, companies could develop a new device every 24 hours using napster fabbing and user ideas. It’s just a portable device, it’s not a lifestyle. That’s what the dorks don’t get! You can get a set of custom golf clubs, which are far more complex to manufacture than a mp3 player which is basically storage in plastic with a layer of software. People will even write the software for free, so all you need is the storage and plastic container and a little LCD which cost next to nothing. The whole thing will be obsolete in 6 months, unlike the golf clubs that will last for years.
A huge reason the iPod is popular because it is incredibly simple to use and hides its features that aren’t related to playing music – anyone’s grandmother can learn to use an iPod. It doesn’t hurt that it’s also extremely stylish.
Unless the Zune has a good interface that just lets you listen to some music right away and easily, all the bullet point features in the world won’t make it worth having. It’s not particularly good looking either.
I hope that wi-fi in portable music devices really catches on however. The more cables I don’t have to keep track of, the better. If I could download files and or songs from my computer completely cable-free I’d be a lot more persuaded to buy one.
If the readers here designed a portable media player, I doubt it would be accepted by the “industry” because they know what people want. It’s like the auto industry. They produce designs that nobody wants and then bitch about paying workers benefits. The benefits are killing GM, it’s not the shitty designs nobody wants. Microsoft won’t kill the ipod, better selection will. Now the cars are being made ipod ready. The engine is junk, but the stereo is kick ass. Most audio nuts install their own system with aftermarket components.
I bet Dvorak readers can design something more stylish than the ipod or zune. How about a TV remote control that is also a media player? The iT, stores your music, TV Guide, and the rest of your digital mess. When it’s obsolete, you can use it with your TV which lasts for years like your golf clubs.
[A huge reason the iPod is popular because]
People are conditioned. Have another Big Mac. 4,000,000,000,000 served and served.
Cheap Chinese labor. You get a cot at ipod plant.
[make more ipod, sleep, make more ipod, sleep]
People don’t want open source products.
[It’s brand new and brands are sacred cows]
Marketing copies cult methods. Very effective.
Apple is smarter than you. At least Steve Jobs is!
It’s not made by Microsoft.
[MS big and greedy. Apple small and tasty]
Granny can use an ipod.
[It’s like AM stereo]
Not to steer the conversation back to the story, but…
iTunes playlists can be shared on a LAN. We do this at work religiously, spawning many conversations (the original “Social Networking” communication protocol) about music, and I’ve even listen to other people’s music at the Venetian in Vegas!
Apple understands that to be a leader you have to control an entire sector… from purchase to play. Trying to catch a fad doesn’t matter when you are the fad.
Technology writers become like the companies they write about. This situation turns the technology writers into sales copywriters that somebody else pays. Since Microsoft and Apple get more press than any other companies in technology, the readers get spoon fed a steady diet of marketing and repeat the cycle. The companies train the technology writers to ignore the readers and if they have to respond it’s nearly always always with scorn. See Dell for how to turn this into an art form. The result is laptops catching on fire, limited consumer choices and rights and products that are designed to be thrown away and replaced with new new models that are faster, better and stronger. It’s like the 6 million dollar man. My laptop is slow, but it’s not going to catch fire. In the end, the technology writer gives up and figures the consumer is screwed and like the companies, writes all kinds of propaganda between product launches. The readers can blog about or bitch about it all, but control over product development and quality is now outsourced to China, Hong Kong or someplace else and Americans just buy the stuff. Apple isn’t American like apple pie. It’s just another distributor of imported junk like Walmart. Microsoft wants to get in on the action, which is all the Zune does for the corporation. The user isn’t a part of the solution. The Zune will convert cheap overseas labor into U.S. dollars to make Microsoft executives richer. Cloak it in social software lingo and it’s viral or 2.0, whatever. The world is flat and all that nonsense. You’ll toss it in the trash and get the new one with firewire 2.0, USB 6.0 or whatever the next wireless social thing is. It will change everything and John and every technology journalist will be sent one to review. I hope it works with Zapster.
Microsoft will throw tons of money at the concept, loose billions of dollars, and eventually control 51% of the market at which time they will declare victory and stop developing the product.
The nice thing is it will finally put some fear into Apples heart and they will start pricing their damn Ipods more resonably. I refuse to buy an Ipod due to apples damn marketing agreements with retailers. Ever notice that every store has the same retail price on the damn things.
I don’t hate Ipods, and even though I won’t buy 1 for myself, I got a Nano for my daughter for her birthday last month. It works OK, but the first day she took it to school to listen to between classes it died during her first period cause she did not plug it in the night before.
Microsft, use regular batteries in your player.
Apple is going to control the entire sector, from purchase to play? That should do wonders for innovation. It sounds like a monopoly. This is why you have so few choices. When they say leadership, they mean elite corporate position. Let’s split the world up between us. Apple gets music, Google gets search, Microsoft gets the OS, Dell gets the laptops and Sun gets…nobody is sure yet. Vegas gets the left over sucker dollars! You get nothing, not even your own privacy. Thanks Sun! Maybe you get a Dell laptop that burns your house down or a new Zune to keep you socially connected.
Starting a blog is a smart move for a tech writer. I’m sure John was bored writing robotic stories about MS. Apple is less boring because the company is stranger. After John started blogging he became much more interesting. I quit reading PC Magazine for the most part. Blogs are going to kill the magazines faster than a zune kills the ipod. Blogs will keep you socially connected, devices will not. If I remember right, Apple tried killing some blogs. Apple is anti-open source, pro-monopolistic and DRM friendly. DRM let’s them control the user experience which copies what MS does. Now MS is copying Apple. The social angle is just bullshit 2.0!
18 Apple is …DRM friendly.
Of course.
Before they started being the middle-man for online music sales, it was “Rip – Mix – Burn!”.
Once they convinced the scared music industry to let Apple spearhead the “legal downloads” market – and Jobs had to worry about Pixar movies being pirated – DRM, and “good karma”, was their friend.
I know the sharing feature would be limited and lame, but to be honest, if implemented right, it could be a killer feature.
I travel in NY subways and you always see people sharing an mp3 player by “splitting” the headphones (one channel to each person). These people would love to listen to the same music at the same time on their own players.
I could also imagine situations where strangers could make eye contact and allow each to listen to each others music (think of this as a pickup type situation).
I can think of it as an impromptu “local” radio station where people in a park can tune to somebody “broadcasting” from their mp3 player to whomever wan’ts to listen.
So, its too bad the DRM will get in the way of sharing music with others, which is one of the righteous things in life to me.
20 I travel in NY subways and you always see people sharing an mp3 player by “splitting” the headphones…
Some Walkmans had dual jacks, and the early iPods did, too.
I remember reading about early iPod users being surprised when other iPod users – otherwise strangers to them – would spot the white earphones and either a. unplug their own cord and see if the stranger would let them “jack in” on the open jack. or b. offer their own open jack to the stranger.
Seemed kind of cultish/clannish, at the time.
So, its too bad the DRM will get in the way of sharing music with others, which is one of the righteous things in life to me.
One of those FM transmitter modules would allow this – and most “iPod killers” seem to have FM radio reception built-in.
I wonder if the 4-listener restriction is only for DRM-protected songs? Their shouldn’t be any other reason to limit the number of receivers.
FM is a nice feature. Apple seems to be anti-FM. Zunes is going to have a wireless link. I’ll bet you can’t get FM. Maybe you will. I happen to like FM. It’s all about technology companies moving in on free content and replacing it with protected content under DMCA, the most worthless piece of legislation since….
A lawyer could answer that better than me. They’re working on breaking other stuff. After FM is ruined, they can wreck the elections and who knows what else. They’re like the cable companies. Make the public pay through the nose and call it new technology. I see WebTV boxes at the thrift store all the time. Remember that great idea. The TV antenna was too simple. Now they are putting antennas on every lamp post in the land. I have one antenna and it’s on my TV and most of what it gets is more than I need. I can even record it with no DRM bullshit.
You to have to admit, it sounds like a great product.. of course itunes incompatability will mean than it doesnt actually take off
If we could clone Mr. Telsa and get him to figure out how to recharge all these units wirelessly aswell.. Then we’d be shi**ing in tall grass.
Oh but wait. That probably wouldn’t sit well with DRM or GWB.
MS has never succeeded when first movers in the Market for a specific product and/or technology… However I trust they will pull this off and faster than expected, think XBOX (vs playstation)… Windows Mobile (vs Symbian, Palm etc).
And no, I do not work for MS – I wish I did though…
On the other hand, how come consumers are still attracted in the purchase of mp3 players when you can use a cellphone, plug-in a 2GB SD card full off songs. Truly do you really need a bizziollion songs for your commute?