According to Billboard, Microsoft is about to “launch an artist-focused podcast” for the beleaguered ol’ Zune. If you own one, you’ll be able to get interviews and audio-visual ephemera and whatnot from folks like Common and Oasis and other musicians that Idolator may not have already written about multiple times today. But you don’t own one. [Billboard]
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wait, now. i may not have the tattoo, but i do have a zune.
(for the last time, it was a gift!)
@silkyjumbo: How do you feel about it? It LOOKS like a better music player than the iPod. I’ve played with the software on my friend’s computer and must admit that it really does make iTunes look archaic. Especially MixView! But, until Microsoft gets their ducks in a row and port it over to a Mac, I’ll never own one.
Yo, Jess! I know this may not be your forte, but instead of just shooting off about these music gadgets, how about you all give us a review? Most of us here don’t have half of the things you all bash and you all have obviously more contact with it than we do. It’d be appreciated. Gracias.
Seriously. If I manage an artist on the level of Oasis or Common, why would I waste the artist’s time with some Zune bullshit?
@DW: i would totally do an in-depth review of the zune if it worked with my computer. the few times i’ve played with the new version, it’s been ok, although a little bit clunky compared to [redacted name of my current mp3 player].
i think a lot of what is still off-putting about the zune is the hipper-than-hip marketing microsoft tried to do with it back when it launched (flying bloggers out, making deals with sub pop, etc). it was just so, well, silly, in an end-of-indie’s-gilded-age sorta way. not to mention that the device didn’t work with the computer that is preferred by at least a sizable plurality of that group. and anyway, it was summarily dropped when whoever was making decisions there realized that that particular demographic tended to embrace any brand that was giving them shit for free, and that there wasn’t much else going on as far as aesthetic filtering.
although part of me wonders if it would have been more successful if it had gone the route of, say, boltbus and been a stealth offshoot of microsoft. (boltbus is actually a greyhound offshoot, something that i had no idea about until i saw a times piece on low-cost bus competitors a few weeks ago; i only knew it as the wifi bus up until that point. greyhound branding is nowhere on bolt’s official site: boltbus.com.)
No shit… boltbus is a subsidiary of greyhound? Good to know.
The Zune is actually a great device, and the Zune Pass is a great middle ground for people who want to sample broadly, but still want artists to get some of their money. Microsoft seems to have a little problem with final beta testing before they release new software though.