Why I Won’t Swoon For Zune
This is going to be pretty short and sweet. I’m sure that Kirk may have a blow-by-blow analysis of all of Zune’s shortcomings forthcoming, but I just want to do a quick take on what is supposed to make Zune an “iPod Killer:” — that killer app that would coax people like me away from purchasing yet another iPod — the wireless song-sharing.
Wireless song-sharing!! On paper, it sure sounds good. And for a few seconds there, I was actually excited about Zune’s wireless capability, especially when I started reading about it:
The software maker said Thursday that its portable Zune media player, scheduled to be available around the holiday season, will include wireless technology to let people share some of their favorite songs, playlists or pictures with other Zune users who are close by.
Hey now, I thought, that’s pretty cool! But then I read further:
Those users can listen to the songs three times over three days before deciding whether to purchase it themselves.
Ha! So I can listen to a song once a day for three whole days!!! What happens if I want to listen to the song two times the first day, skip a day, and then listen to it on the 3rd day? Can I do that? And after I’ve listened to my song those three times, then what happens? Does Zune automatically erase it? Or — even worse — does it sit on my player taking up space, but unusable? Either way, the marketing gurus seem to think that this is a good idea:
“The idea is to legitimize peer-to-peer sharing in a healthy way that works for everybody,” said J Allard, a Microsoft vice president in charge of the Zune product line.
I’m assuming that “everybody” in this case doesn’t include consumers like me, because I’m having a hard time figuring out how this would ever work for me.
IPod Rival to Have Wireless Song-Sharing
Technorati Tags: zune, microsoft, MSFT, iPod, Apple, AAPL
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2 Comment(s) so far
1. Medialoper » Zune’s Big Innovation: Viral DRM wrote on September 15th, 2006 at 7:26 am
[...] Unfortunately Zune’s wireless music sharing is turning out to be one of those features that seemed better when it was just a rumor. While Zune users will be able share music with friends, there’s a catch (isn’t there always). As Jim noted earlier, recipients of shared songs will only be able to listen to them three times or for three days, whichever comes first. It sort of sounds like a really bad tire warranty. [...]
2. Medialoper » The Weekly ‘Loper - September 17, 2006 wrote on September 17th, 2006 at 7:57 pm
[...] Why I Won’t Swoon For Zune – Why Microsoft’s vision of a nation of consumers beaming songs at each other like so many souped-up Palm Pilots probably won’t come to fruition. [...]