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All posts tagged "steve"


Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Zune Podcast Listener Market Share Exploding!

Posted by Rocco Augusto in "Zune Talk" @ 01:00 PM

http://blog.rawvoice.com/2008/01/19...hare-exploding/

"In the first two weeks of 2008 the number of people consuming my personal podcast with the Zune is WAY up. Over all my show download numbers are up about 15%. This is the largest growth my show has seen in a very long time. What this proves is that when you put Podcast front and center in the Zune Interface like the Zune team has, and make it a integral part of the Zune MarketPlace people are bound to check podcast out. Where Apple has largely failed in iTunes is that they have made podcast hard to find and a buried feature within the iTunes Interface. Today it is nearly impossible to find content that is fresh, the iTunes podcast interface is a wasteland of thousands of podfaded shows and huge numbers of single podcast episodes put up by network marketer’s."


(Sorry about the tiny image, I couldn't find anything bigger!)

Over at RawVoice, there is an incredibly interesting article up about recent podcasting trends and the Zune. In this instance users of the Zune and Zune Marketplace software make up 21.3% of their listeners! This might not seem like a lot, but take iTunes for instance, whose user base makes up only 38.7% of their listeners. Now seeing how the new Zune software and hardware has only been on the streets for a few months now, compared to the many years iTunes has been around, it appears that Apple might have to start taking the "little media player that could" a bit more seriously. Who knows, old Stevie might just take a look at this and declare that all of the Zune Marketplace users have joined good old Robbie Bach in a round a drinks, since you know, being a drunk is the only reason why anyone would want a Zune. Read more...


Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Steve Kaneko Tackles the Brown Question

Posted by Darius Wey in "Zune Talk" @ 07:40 PM

http://www.zuneinsider.com/2006/10/interview_zune_.html

"Why brown? Because love it or hate it, people feel something. Artists and musicians take chances everyday, and so will we. What few people haven’t seen yet is that we didn’t stop with just brown, we encased it in an “anti-freeze green” double-shot. There’s nothing like it out there that resembles the warmth and grittiness of certain styles of music. It is both formal and informal. And it appeals to men and women. It’s a color that’s both everyday and high fashion at the same time"

I guess that's a fair response to Microsoft's choice of brown as the trademark colour of the Zune. I'll admit that it's grown on me. The brown Zune doesn't seem as bad now as it did weeks ago when it was first revealed, though I'm still a sucker for the black Zune with its cool blue trim. Back to the interview, Steve goes on to discuss other aspects of the Zune design. Most of it is focused on the current. I'm actually interested in the future. What does Microsoft have in store for the second-generation Zune and beyond, and even nano-sized Zune devices (assuming they're in the making)?


Monday, October 16, 2006

Jobs on Zune's Sharing: Too Slow

Posted by Darius Wey in "Zune Talk" @ 06:52 AM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15262121/site/newsweek/page/3/

"I've seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable."

That's a quote from Newsweek's interview with Apple's head honcho, Steve Jobs. While the Zune's wireless sharing feature is a little crippled in its current form, I do think it has potential, yet Apple appears to not even embrace the concept. Could this say something about future iPods? Will they never incorporate any sort of sharing capabilities?


Thursday, October 12, 2006

Ballmer: The Zune Isn't Losing Money

Posted by Darius Wey in "Zune Talk" @ 08:51 AM

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2006/tc20061011_940241.htm

"...our ability to embrace and benefit from or compete with new business models - and I would say ad-funded and open source, more than this hardware thing - is more the way to categorize the key competitive dynamic for us. [Does Zune fit into the hardware piece of this?] Sure it does. Because the value of Zune, if we're successful, is all in the software. It's in community [the ability to share music and pictures with other Zune users]. I want to squirt you a picture of my kids. You want to squirt me back a video of your vacation. That's a software experience. The truth is, though, if it makes money, it will be built into the gross margin on the hardware. We'll figure out how to make money on the community perhaps later though advertising or other means."

Steve Ballmer took time out recently to talk to BusinessWeek about the Zune, Xbox, and Windows Vista - where they're at now, and where they're heading. One of the major points to come out of the interview was the claim that the Zune, unlike the Xbox 360, would not be losing money through the sale of hardware alone. That's good news for Microsoft's accountants, but comes across as an awful lot less risk-taking by the company, though that's not necessarily a bad thing either. There's a time and place for gambling, and you certainly have to pick the right moment before taking the plunge and relying on the sale of accessories and media to cover any monetary losses in the sale of hardware - especially at this current stage, when the Zune brand is a mere blip on the radar, and demand is well short of that of the iPod.


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