Zune Thoughts: What’s Really Happening with the Zune

"I bought a zune because I saw the vision Microsoft had for the XBox 360, and I fully understood the direction they were going to take the zune. and now, with the software version 2.5, they are oh so close to being there."

Aaron Linne wrote a great piece on the direction of the Zune brand. He brings up the common arguments against Zune and the Social, but rebuts them by bringing up a scenario in which Cesar Menendez sent him (and everyone else on Cesar's friend list) a link to the new Tokyo Police album. What differentiates this scenario in the Zune ecosystem from other social network/audio scrobbling services is that Zune not only features a tighter integration between the different services (e.g. one-click downloads of other peoples' recommended songs), but also the unlimited download Zune Pass. Using a Pass, I can download as many tracks as I want without any extra cost. The ones I don't like I just get rid of; I don't have to worry about wasting $20 on songs I don't really like. This is a huge value to me as a music consumer, and makes the Zune ecosystem that much stronger.

I think Linne sums up the Zune brand perfectly: "iTunes is for people who like certain musicians. Zune is for people like music."