Zune Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

"Recently it was announced that Murs and Kidz in the Hall would be embarking on a 36 city tour to support their latest albums, Murs for President and The In Crowd respectively. To support these artists Zune is producing exclusive tour diary podcasts that will allow fans to follow along on the groups journey across America."

Following in the grand tradition of past Special Edition Zunes, this most recent batch has got the visual presentation down pat. However, not being a huge fan of either of these artists, I'm going to have to pass. I guess it's probably a good thing I don't listen to a lot of hip music; Otherwise, Zune would be bleeding me dry with all of these special editions. I wouldn't mind, however, an Erykah Badu or Devin the Dude-branded player. How well that'd work out in reality is another question. Is there an artist or group you'd like to see Special-ized?

"Wisin & Yandel, the reggaeton duo with an uncanny knack for delivering hit singles, will become the first act to get its own customized Zune player, Billboard has learned.

The limited-edition Wisin & Yandel Zune device will hit Wal-Mart stores nationwide October 29, before the release of the duo's new album, 'Los Extraterrestres,' November 6.

Featuring the new album, videos, exclusive pictures and customized packaging, the MP3 player is but one aspect of a multiplatform Microsoft promotion that targets a new Latin consumer at the same time it promotes a hip Latin act."

It seems Microsoft is serious about expanding into the Latino demographic, and Winsin and Yandel (known for their club hits and addition to Paris Hilton's "Stars Are Blind" remix) are a great place to start. They're just "indie" enough to boost Microsoft's cred, yet popular and well-known enough to help them sell some players.

I read an article on ZDNet a while ago about using iPods as pretty much CDs--preloaded with content that you already like, and you can modify it from there. Ignoring the Apple Corps vs Apple Computer ruling which states that Apple can't sell any hardware device with music*, this would seem like a bad idea on many levels. But Microsoft seems to have pulled it off to some degree with the preloaded content on Zune1. The content served several purposes, but mainly to bolster the Zune's indie cred while also serving as a demo for how content is handled (giving users the experience of how it would work when they added their own media.)
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