Zune Thoughts: Zune Patent App Promises Recommendations Via Wifi

"A newly posted Microsoft Patent Application appears to describe technology that would provide automatic downloads to a Zune media player if newly tracks from various artists whose work is already stored on Zune or on a user’s PC-based library becomes available....Say you have five Dave Matthews Band tracks already stored on your Zune. Dave puts out some new tracks. A music service could flag a track for promotion, and that track could automatically be pushed down to a Zune- or your PC media library- in much the same way Windows Updates are pushed through to users."

This is really cool. It seems like a logical extension of podcasting, and if it could sync to the device directly, all the better. Granted, I'm typically on top of the releases from my favorite artists, but if it was coupled with an intelligent recommendation system (a la Pandora or Urge's AutoMix), and only pushed ones it really thinks I'll like, this could be amazing. I love discovering new music, Microsoft loves pushing its partners' new songs. It's a win-win.

At the same time, this has the potentially to be really annoying. Let's say I was in the mood for some Dave Matthews one day, and I start downloading his albums like mad. I check my library a few days later to actually listen to the songs, and find I really and truly hate most of them, but the Zune recommendations keep coming.... Ahh!

Plus, if the recommendation system is poorly implemented (which would never happen...right?), I'd be getting hardcore hip hop on my mostly folk-rock Zune or vice-versa. We'll see how this plays out.