Zune Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

"If you're curious what Mixview looks like, but haven't yet installed the Zune Software, check this out: you can now preview mixview while you're connected to the web, via zune.net. Now when you click on the page for an album, artist, or Zune Card, you can click the link "mixview" to check it out. If you're already running the Zune software, this is a great way to give your friends a chance to check Zune out!"

Well this is certainly cool; a nice way to show off the Mixview feature to friends or people without the 3.0 software. The web version provides similar functionality as its desktop counterpart, and is a neat way to visualize the relationships between your favorite artists. It runs on Microsoft's Silverlight web framework, which calls to mind an issue I have with the Zune Cards themselves. Namely, that they're still running on Flash, Silverlight's competitor. Lately I've been attempting to port the ZuneCard data to Silverlight, and hopefully I'll have a working prototype up and running shortly. But in the meantime, you can amaze your friends and humble your enemies with this cool web-based music service. Check it out on Zune.net.

Jessica Zahn, Zune Social program manager and all-around cool gal, has been enlisting help with a new feature for the Social, a sort-of trivia game that will combine personal quizzes with music knowledge. This has been on the books for a while, but recently Jessica (Ztag: Jetherealz) has started getting serious, dropping a ton of specs and proposed features. Additionally, she's been enlisting help from the Community—that's right, capitalized—to design and skin the site. Ryan (Ztag: Volvoshine) alerted us to a mockup he's currently working on over at Zune-Scene that looks pretty cool so far. If you want to get involved, visit the Zune.net forums, and make your voice heard.