Philthy

Zune HD

By PHIL PALIOS

You may have recently seen Zune in the news with their latest announcement, the Zune HD touch-screen music player.  It looks like a wonderful device, but I believe that Zune has a lot more to offer people who love music: the combination of a great music subscription service, desktop software and portable player.  To dig deeper into the digital music subscription revolution I had the chance to sit down with Jessica Zahn, Program Manager on the Zune Social team and Matt Akers, “Gangster of Test” on the Zune Client team at their beautiful new Zune HQ building on the Microsoft Studios West campus.

To begin with, I wanted to know how they felt the subscription model was doing when compared to the more traditional means of listening to music.  “I definitely think it’s growing.”  responds Matt, as he continues:  “I think we’re still in the phase of getting people to learn about what it really is and get people [who are] acquainted with ‘renting music’ in a way, whereas we look at it more as being able to enjoy lots of music whether it be through friends or the social and gain a robust collection without having to spend thousands of dollars and being able to enjoy that music…A lot of it is getting people to understand what it is and [making] it available to them.” 

The value that a music subscription offers to music listeners is essential in determining if it’s worth the $15 monthly fee.  For many, the rental mentality can quickly deter them from more closely examining their music desires and listening habits.  As Jessica describes it: “I think that at some point some people say ‘This is what I listen to, I’m in this decade, I’m in this genre, this is where I’m going to stay.’  I think for most true, real, music lovers, that’s not the case.  We’re not going to listen to the same album 50,000 times.  Maybe 50.”  To which Matt jests “Unless it’s Radiohead!  Which I listen to 86 million times.”  Jessica continues:  “But you know, I look at my collection and I have, on my work PC, I think I have about 50GB of music.  It’s my entire ripped CD collection from prior to Zune and everything I’ve downloaded since then.  I look through it and I’m like ‘I don’t want to listen to any of this, I want something else.  I want something new!’  I would say the vast majority of my listening that’s not at the gym is streaming from the Marketplace.” 

At this point I think Zahn identified the crux of the music lover’s dilemma:  Part of why we love music so much is the number of new songs with infinite combination of sounds, lyrics, rhythms and ideas coming out every week from artists around the world and either not being able to listen to any of it, or spending money to own some of this new music forever, even if we only want to hear it a few times.  “For me, the subscription model lets me have as much music as I want right now without costing me a fortune.” says Jessica, identifying what, to me, is the value of subscribing to a music service like Zune.  She continues: “The [Zune] Pass will change your listening habits.  Knowing you can have whatever you want changes what you want.”

Mixview in Zune Client

Shifting my view from the rental mentality, where I think I am downloading music that will all disappear if I end my subscription, to the idea that I have a license to listen to whatever I want, is how I realized the value of a music subscription.  The ability to explore new music and listen to all of the music I want, whenever I want, is a much better listening experience than selectively buying a few albums and listening to a much more limited, and dated, collection of music I own. 

All of this assumes that you are not stealing music.  The wonders of Napster back in the day (not the Napster of today) are what connected the internet revolution with music lovers.  Suddenly you could listen to all the music you wanted without paying for any of it.   The catch here is that sharing music this way is illegal.  Over the past few years the RIAA has been taking significant actions to cut down on music piracy.  If stealing isn’t bad enough, the peer-to-peer networks where music is shared have become a platform for quickly spreading viruses and malware, making it a threat to your computer and the information it stores.

 It’s been so long since I even thought about file swapping networks that Matt and Jessica’s mention of these networks still being used was a reality check for me.  It also identified what seems to be Zune’s primary target audience.  People who use illegal music swapping services are targeted, not so much because of the fact that they like to steal music, but that they love music and want to have unlimited access, is what makes Zune interested in them.  Matt elaborates: “You want to grab people that are in this mindset of ‘I could just go steal this off a torrent.’  We want to grab that audience and say ‘Well, hey, if you want to be Honest Joe, we’re going to give you a way to do that.  You can still enjoy all the music you like and you can get everything that you want.’  Because I think that’s the thing: Kids today, they want to have unlimited access to everything.  ‘I want this album, I want all this stuff and I’m just going to download everything and steal it all.’  That’s going to come to an end at some point.  They’re going to find a way to crack down on that.  We’re trying to give people that way so you can do it legally and you have a sense of integrity and still enjoy all the music you want.”

I believe that while Zune may be focusing on converting people from stealing music to the subscription model, they are also renewing the passion of people like me who enjoyed file sharing when it first emerged, but after the death of the original Napster, went back to their limited music collections.  Getting a Zune Pass restored that excitement I had back in the Napster days of being able to explore a catalog of all the music I wanted.

Providing unlimited access to music is great, but it took the software plus service experience provided by Zune and an overwhelming flow of playlists and exclusive content that led me to breaking up with my iPod.  “It’s almost like surprise gifts once you get it.  ‘Ok, I got it for my unlimited [music] and now *boom* I get all this other stuff!’” says Matt.  Zune soars above other subscription providers by having an amazing software client that will make you shiver at the sight of iTunes, creating a portable player that is easy to use and stylish, while providing a plethora of online content from in-house DJs and partnerships with musicians. 

Zune produces a ton of new playlists on a regular basis and they categorize them into three groups: Mixtapes, Guestlists and Breakdowns.  “The Breakdowns and Guestlists, these are really cool things!  The relationships we have with those artists that will do a Breakdown where they go song by song for an album and describe the process of making that album, or they put together their version of a Mixtape to talk about their influences or what they’re listening to.  I totally eat that stuff up, I think that’s awesome content.” says Jessica.  It is awesome content, indeed!  Mixtape playlists are created by in-house DJs at Zune and revolve around a variety of themes, some of my favorites include: “Grillin’ and Chillin’”, “2009 Hits”, “51st Grammys: Winners Collection”, “Coachella 2009 Collection”, “Road Trip Collection” and “Tarantino Soundtracks.”  The Mixtapes with “Collection” in their title are more extensive than typical 10-20 song playlists; they have 100-300 tracks.  Zahn continues: “I love the way our editorial programming team put together the Mixtapes for Sasquatch, Winter Music Conference and all the major festivals.  That’s really cool stuff!  ‘Oh, who’s going to be there?  I can’t go but I can get all this new content from these artists that are going to be there!’”

Zune Device Family

In addition to the playlists, Zune provides an extensive collection of Channels: “You can either have Channels based on your listening habits or Channels created by our in-house DJs.  Like the Hip-Hop one for me, for a guy who loves Hip-Hop, it’s great.”  Explains Akers: ” I’ll go on there and there are 20 songs and I’m like ‘Oooh, what about that?  Oooh, I like that!’ and I can just try them.  If I like them, great!  If I don’t, no harm no foul.  That’s the beauty of the [Zune] Pass.”  Once you find a Channel you like, it provides an ongoing source of new music to try out.  Zune will also create channels based on your listening habits, describes Zahn: “I really like the New Releases for You with the artists that I’ve listened to before.  I’m always like ‘Ha!  There’s a new thing!’  Some of the artists I listen to don’t have full artist albums, they just have singles.  So when they have a new single out, I’m not going to see it.  There’s not going to be a big splash, I’m just going to have to go find it.  So to have it show up like that, makes my job a lot easier.”

The ongoing theme of making it easy to discover new music you might like doesn’t stop with the playlists and Channels in the Marketplace.  The Zune Social provides an experience throughout the client, device and website for both seeing what your friends are listening to and finding people with similar music tastes to your own.  Zune devices have two unique features you won’t find on other music players: The ability to share music from device to device wirelessly and a built-in FM tuner.  With so much music available for download, why would you listen to the radio?  It’s all about discovery, and radio remains a great way to discover new music.  The device allows you to tag songs you hear on the radio so that you can listen later or add them to your collection.

Zune’s latest announcement, the Zune HD is a touch-screen portable music player with a similar size and design to the iPod Touch.  Demos of the device so far have shown a similar interface to past Zune devices, making it very easy to navigate through your music collection and play music as well as browse photos and videos.  The touch interface seems very slick and makes using the device easy while also providing more screen real estate by eliminating the physical buttons.  Zune HD earns its name by adding support for HD radio and providing HD video output so you can watch videos in HD from your Zune device when it’s connected to a HDTV.  Microsoft expects to release the Zune HD in Fall of this year; no official release date has been announced yet.  Speaking with Matt and Jessica confirmed that this is a major release for Zune and to expect much more fanfare and launch events than their recent device releases that were smaller-scale with more memory and new colors but no big changes.  From what has been announced so far, I think the device looks great! But there are two things yet to be announced that will be deciding factors for me: How much space is available?  And, Will it be available for customization through Zune Originals?  My current 16GB flash Zune with custom art from Zune Originals is fantastic, but I would like the larger screen and touch interface, especially if it offers more storage too. 

Despite a bad economy and record loss in profits for Microsoft, they continue to invest resources into Zune.  There have been cutbacks within Zune, but they are focused on trimming non-essential roles and preserving the product development teams.  Both Jessica and Matt work full-time in product development groups.  The work they do on the side: blogging on Zune Insider, creating a weekly podcast and doing interviews like this one with me, are done out of their love for Zune and in addition to all of their responsibilities to the team.  Having so much dedication to their product really shined through in the time I spent discussing Zune with them.  They believe that Zune is a superior product and they want to help share this way of listening to music with other music lovers.

“I think once they give it a shot, that’s all it takes.” Claims Akers, as he continues to make his case:  

“When I have friends that have iPods or family members or whomever and they say ‘What do you do?’ and I say ‘I work on Zune.’  And they say ‘What’s that?’  That’s when I show them [the device] and I show them the advantage.  I show them the Pass, I show them the software, I show them Mixview, I show them the player.  They go: ‘Wow!  That is cool.’  I show them the FM tuner; they say ‘Really, it has that too?’   I think there are people that are in the know and there are people that aren’t.  The people that aren’t will go ‘Oh, what’s that?  An iPod?’ because iPod has become the Kleenex of MP3 players.  They could have a Sansa and say ‘Look at my iPod!’

I think the biggest barrier is getting people to try it out.  Get people to try it, and once they do, nine times out of ten, they fall in love with it.  It’s just a matter of getting through that big barrier.  [Apple] came out five years before us.  You’re starting to see us round that corner though.  You go on Gizmodo, you go on Engadget, you go on some of those sites and the tone there has changed dramatically.  Now all of a sudden all the Apple fan boys are getting [their posts] downgraded and people that say ‘Zune’s great!’ are getting pushed to the top.  We’re only three and we’re already starting to get that shift.  Think about what Xbox did for instance.  Xbox came and said ‘Hey, we’re going to do this.’ and [critics] said ‘You guys are silly.  Sony’s got it wrapped up.  Nintendo’s got it wrapped up.  You guys are done, there’s no way you’re going to do this.’  Well, look whose number one now.  Look what they did in the span of five or six years.  They totally turned the tables.  I definitely can see us on that path.  The first thing is getting people to try it out.”

Zune Originals Customization

Zune has turned a corner and they have established their product as a clear competitor to iPod + iTunes.  I think that no matter which product you prefer, you have to be thankful that Microsoft came in as an underdog and continues to challenge Apple.  Without the competition, Apple would have no reason to innovate.  As the two compete, consumers benefit through the revolutionary technology being released.  I hope that this article has inspired you to try Zune and see how you feel about it, what’s the worst that can happen?  Unfortunately, the Zune displays at retailers aren’t that great of a way to learn about the product, with no content on the devices and no access to the software or Marketplace you’re only seeing 10% of the experience.  The good news is that the client is free to download and you can also get a free 14-day pass to see what the Zune Pass and Marketplace are all about. 

The joy I have received from being able to explore music the way I did back in the Napster days and know its legal is wonderful!  I’m so thankful that Microsoft has invested in showing people there’s a better solution out there.  As someone who loves music, I feel it’s my duty to share this product with fellow music lovers and hope that my conversation with Matt and Jessica has provided a more in-depth argument for trying out the subscription model and using a service that provides an all-around great experience.