Zuneguy

CES Party

2007-12-26T21:42:00.000-08:00

So here's the deal. I didn't get a lot of feedback on the CES meet-up (I think 3 people replied). Plus, no one has sent me a single picture of the swag I sent them from the last contest (you know who you are). So, I'm hesitant to run another contest. However, the team is having a small private get together at CES (this is not an official MS thing, just the Zune accessories team). Want to meet the team? Here's what you have to do...

I need either of two things. First, a really great (and I mean great) tip/trick that I can repost on the site. Something really cool that hasn't been posted before. I'm thinking of things like hacking accessories to work with Zune or getting content on the device (legally). Second, if you don't have a tip or trick, tell me why you want to meet the team. No pandering and nothing like, "it would be really cool to meet you." Give me a good reason. Something like you want to interview the team for your blog. There will be rules about what you can and can't post (don't say you weren't warned). But, if the reason is good enough, we'll send an invite. Just to set your expectations, though, I'm guessing we won't invite more than two people. So make it good.

What Did You Get for Christmas?

2007-12-26T21:41:00.001-08:00

Who got a new Zune for Christmas? What was it, the 4, 8, 30, or 80? Have you tried out Marketplace yet? What do you think? Anyone get any cool accessories? I got a DLO action jacket (but it was the generic one).

Been Traveling Again...

2007-12-26T21:37:00.000-08:00

I know it has been kind of quiet again. Part of it is the traditional Holiday rush. But, part of it was that I was in Asia. Yep, I'm already working on V3 and, unfortunately, it means that I had to spend part of the December break overseas. While I can't give away too much, I spent time working on both devices and next gen accessories. I'll try to keep this updated, but with CES fast approaching, who knows.

CES

2007-12-03T19:11:00.001-08:00

Well. it is that time of the year again. We're deep into CES planning. The last couple of years I tried to have a get-together, but without much luck. however, I thought I'd give it one more shot. Anyone planning on being at CES? Anyone interested in a meet-up? If we get a critical mass, I'll plan something.

Testing Windows Live Writer

2007-11-26T23:44:00.001-08:00

It has been awhile since I tried WLW. Last time I really liked the product, but had a few issues with the editing/formatting. On a whim, I thought I'd give it another shot. The team seems to have improved the polish of the product quite a bit. It is not terribly different, but it is much easier to use in the little things. I especially like the integration with Blogger. Good work guys!

Have You Seen Any New Accessories?

2007-11-26T22:24:00.000-08:00

By now, there should be a few of the new accessories hitting the shelves. As much as I'd like to divulge the exact products, I'm not allowed to until they become public due to NDAs. However, I can say that you should be seeing a ton of new cases and some new speaker docks to name a few. I'm wondering if anyone has seen them (so I can talk a little more about them) or even purchased some.

Black Friday Deals

2007-11-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

I know there are some specials going on on the Zune products today. I was hoping that you guys could share what you seen (and hopefully have taken advantage of). Let us know location, store and price.

Zune 80

2007-11-21T19:33:00.000-08:00

Much has been said this week about the 80. Did we make enough or did we not make enough? Are they in store or are they not in stores? Cesar posted about his talks with the PMs this week. Here's what I know. There are 80s to be had. We just picked up three today. I've visited several Targets and seen several there. Incidentally, I saw a guy buy 5 Zune 8s today at Target in Issaquah. If you happen to be that guy and are reading this blog, I'll gladly send you a case! Back to the topic at hand. There are devices available and Cesar says we are making more (which is a good problem to have if you ask me).

Added My ZuneTag

2007-11-18T20:54:00.000-08:00

I noticed that some folks started to embed their ZuneTags into their websites. I wanted to see how easy it was to do. It turns out it is pretty easy. Use this snippit and replace your personal info and preferences with the ones highlighted in RED. Replace (bracket) with <> respectively.

(bracket)div id="zunecard_big" class="zunecard"(bracket)
(bracket)embed
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://social.zune.net//xweb/lx/swf/zunecard.swf?ver=1192"
style="" id="flashUserCard" name="flashUserCard" bgcolor="#FFF" wmode="opaque"
salign="tl"
flashvars="baseURL=http%3a%2f%2fsocial.zune.net%2fzcard%2fusercardservice.ashx%3fzunetag%3dbillwitt27%26src%3dlarge&MMplayerType=PlugIn"
height="140" width="204"(bracket)
(bracket)/div(bracket)

I made mine pretty small to fit into the template. You could make it much larger.

Moodlogic

2007-11-17T15:32:00.001-08:00

I've talked about MoodLogic before. In many ways, it is the precursor to things like Pandora. It was created by a very smart guy who used user data to collect information about songs that is much deeper than what is available from CDDB, AMG, etc (ironically, his company was acquired by one of the others, but that is a different story). I was building a few playlists because it is time to hit the gym after gaining a few pounds in the pre-launch run-up. I remembered how good ML was and decided to see if anything had been changed. It turns out, they have released a new version (v2). I don't know when they did it, but one of the new features is that is it free for your first 10,000 songs. That is very cool. I'm busy building new playlists as we speak. Just curious, do you guys have any tools for building contextual playlists that I don't know about?

We've Got a Winner!

2007-11-13T23:01:00.000-08:00

I know I said I'd pick a winner in the masthead contest awhile ago. Well, I finally got around to it tonight. the Winner is T-Bone. T-bone not only provided a cool masthead, but also customized wallpapers for the device. How can you beat that? I've got prizes for everyone who sent me something. You know the drill, send me you address offline.

PS T-bone, I'm not sure my wife will allow me to use some of the images.

Open Thread

2007-11-13T22:46:00.000-08:00

I'd love to hear your experiences (both good and bad) on upgrading today. One rule - Let's not make this into a battle of iPod versus Zune. I am legitimately interested in how well things went today. I already shared my experiences below.

Reviews

2007-11-13T22:42:00.000-08:00

So we had internal postings three times today to aggregate the reviews as they came in. It was really nice to see a lot of positive feedback. I only saw one really negative review and I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of folks in the comments stick up for us. It actually made my day. I also saw a couple of posts that started out negative for various reasons, but were updated throughout the day. I thought that was really big of the authors. In the end, I couldn't have asked for a better launch day. I'm now waiting with baited breath for the WSJ review.

My Favorite Feature

2007-11-13T22:36:00.000-08:00

Awhile ago I hinted a some of the cool stuff you could do with the new products. I obviously didn't want to give away any of the surprises, so I held off talking about them until after launch. Well, launch day is here.

One of my favorite features is wireless sync when attached to the AV dock. So here's the scenario. When plugged in, the device will automatically poll the client after one minute of inactivity. If you set you Zune to automatically sync your content, then the device will go idle and then poll for anything new. Let's say you have you dock connected to your stereo. If you add new music while working on your PC and then go into the next room, it is already there waiting for you. this also works for your videos. If you've got it plugged into your TV, you can directly watch your shows. VERY cool. Yep, I know I'm a corner case. but it is REALLY nice not to have to shuttle back and forth from the living room to the den.

Zune Card

2007-11-13T22:33:00.000-08:00

I posted a few items to my Zune Card today. Plus, I already had a few messages from a couple of friends. That is really cool! You can find me at http://social.zune.net/member/BillWitt27

Software Upgrade

2007-11-13T22:19:00.000-08:00

At work, I am usually the one of the first to start to dogfood a product. While it is great to get advanced views into what the team is doing, you also tend to lose sight of the first out of box experience for the customers. By the time it hits the shelves, you've been using it for so long the it is old hat. So, I've taken to keeping my home and my work completely separate. This morning, I updated the software just like everyone else.

This evening, I spent a bunch of time going through it to see if I could find any glaring errors or omissions. I'm happy to say, the experience of upgrading was very painless. Ironically, it was easier to get on my home machine than my work machine because of all of the times I installed/reinstalled at work over the last few months.

I then added several devices and upgraded the firmware. No issues on a 4, 8, or 30. I even found a feature I wasn't aware of in the dogfood. The ability to flip though all the devices currently installed on the machine (not the content, but the names, colors, etc). Very cool.

I had heard of people having issues with album art migration. I've got store purchased content, manually added content and ripped content. All of it cam through. I had actually expected some of the drag and drop albums to be skipped, but nope, they worked just fine.

I added wireless sync to the flash products. Worked like a charm (after I added the MAC address to my MAC filtered router. Ooops).

The one issue I did have was a strange bug with one song from one artist. For some reason, a 10,000 Maniacs track kept displaying tack 14 first. the rest of the album was fine. It isn't a big deal, but it was a bit strange. Other than that, my personal collection is up and running great. I'm super excited to finally run it live.

Yellow Zune

2007-11-13T22:12:00.000-08:00

I've seen a few posts today about the Yellow (or Citron) Zunes. I've also seen a lot of speculation as to whether this is a "hidden" product. I'll shed a little light on this. They do exist. They are the ship-gifts given to the team for launching the product. Just like last year when we gave out Magenta and Orange devices, these are a special run just for us. There you have it, mystery solved.

P.S. I have to say, I really, really like mine. Good job manufacturing team!

Informal Zune Reviews

2007-11-12T23:04:00.000-08:00

One of the side benefits of my activities is that I got to show my family some of the new Zune features and get (brutally) honest feedback from them. I was surprised at how well received it was across the board. The most enthusiastic were the folks who did not one an MP3 player at all. they loved the simplicity of the product. Even the iPod owners commented on how easy it was. most also LOVED the ZunePad. It was actually fun to see them flicking through long lists of songs for no other purpose than to see the tracks scroll by. I've told them all to update their Zunes tomorrow and download the new client and then give me more feedback, which I'll post as it comes in.

I'm Back

2007-11-12T23:02:00.000-08:00

Sorry to be gone for so long. What was supposed to be a vacation, turned into something else. My father passed away and we had some things to take care of. Sorry to be a bit of a downer, but the good news is that we've finished with the services and I can get back to focusing on the launch.

Taking a Few Days Off

2007-11-05T22:32:00.000-08:00

I'll be off the grid for a couple of days. I will be back just in time for launch. I hope to be able to give you guys a little more insight after launch day!

Did You See It?

2007-11-01T20:49:00.000-07:00

The first Zune v2 commercial aired here in Seattle on My Name Is Earl at 8:48PM. Did you guys see it? What do you think?

We've Been Busy

2007-10-30T14:36:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't see this, we announced our first and third party accessories today. There are LOTS of people who have been working really,really hard to get these out. So, congrats to the partners and congrats to the team! Now back to work!

Facebook

2007-10-30T08:15:00.001-07:00

After the announcement last week that we would take a stake in Facebook, I thought I'd spend some time with it to understand just what we are investing in. To be honest, I thought that it was really a glorified version of Linked-In. I've been pleasantly surprised at the depth of the site. What makes it very interesting is the application model. Being able to add apps to the site is a cool idea. Friends have sent me everything from fish to Bloody Marys. I've had a bunch of people write on my wall and I've written back. Finding folks is easy and joining groups is a no-brainer. So, not only is this not Linked-In, it is really head and shoulders above other sites like MySpace. I now understand the purchase. I only hope someone creates a ZuneTag app so I can put it on my page.

Thoughts on Podcasting

2007-10-29T22:15:00.000-07:00

In what little time I have these days, I've been spending time with two on-line activities. The first is exploring Facebook (more on that later) and the second is really digging in on podcasting. I'll admit, I never really cared for podcasting. I know Dave over at Zunster loves it. I've heard for at least 2 years that I'm missing the boat. But, frankly, I just didn't think the content was all that compelling.

I have to say after giving it a second try, there there may be something to it. Clearly the content has improved over the last year. Podcasts are generally far more "professional" in nature and it isn't just a bunch of guys blathering on about nothing. Generally speaking, these are slick productions with interesting content. Some are obvious - BBC, NPR and my favorite the Economist. Some have really interesting data - like Achievement Junkie. Others are just plain entertaining and frivilous - French Maid TV and Tiki Bar come to mind. The point is that we've moved beyond the amatures to something useful.

I'm not going to talk about Zune specific podcasting until after launch (well, maybe I'll say one thing at the end). But, generally, I've noticed a few trends. First, it is a lot easier to find and subscribe to podcasts. I found several guides online that made it really easy to browse by subject and subscribe. Second, the production is actually pretty good. I found Adam Curry producing several, which surprised me. I think there are new and interesting tools for managing subscriptions. It isn't all drag and drop by hand, which is nice. I think the iTunes guide is interesting in that respect (and as a side note, can be used in conjunction with Zune if you are so inclined). Lastly automatic syncing has improved greatly across all these tools. You can imagine some of the new features we are adding, will also greatly improve that experience as well (see, I didn't give away too much).

So, I'm really digging podcasting right now. Ii hate to say it, but Dave was right. I'm going to live with it for a month and then report back to see if I'm still using the feature. I suspect I will be.

The Smile Factor

2007-10-27T08:57:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back, I was in a meeting where J was telling the entire team how the products were received. He told a great story about timing how long it took people to smile once they played with the device. I thought that was a really interesting metric and I thought I would test it out.

This week I had four meetings with major companies. A couple were partners or potential partners and a couple are competitors. When the time came to hand out the devices and do the demos, I watched their reactions. Now remember, these guys all have their poker faces on since we are in the middle of business discussions. In no case did it take them over 20 seconds to smile. J was right. In one case, one gave me a thumbs-up from across the room.

Bottom line is that while I'm not going to give out a lot of details before the launch, I am really happy with how the product is received. I can't wait to get it in people's hands.