Zune uses Winehouse death as a marketing opportunity

Presumbly, now there's a post mortem scheduled, Microsoft thought the official mourning period was over and it was okay to try and sell few downloads off the corpse. The Wall reports:

The @tweetbox360 Twitter account, which is run by the Microsoft UK PR team, tweeted this morning: “Remember Amy Winehouse by downloading the ground-breaking ‘Back to Black’ over at Zune”.

The account has since been inundated with complaints accusing it of being opportunistic, of feeding on Amy Winehouse’s corpse, of appalling taste, being a “scumbag” and of shocking marketing.

It should be pointed out that iTunes also pulled a similar stunt, and much more quickly, when it splashed Winehouse all over the store front on Saturday night. Arguably, acknowledging people would have been searching the store for her music anyway and making it easier to find is slightly less ghoulish than using her death to try and market your entire store as a way of "memorialising" Winehouse, but it's a slim distinction and neither Microsoft or Apple have come out of this with their dignity intact.

Click. Off. Zune.

Microsoft's belated attempt to have some of that iPod pie has been put out its misery, with the Zune ceasing to exist as a stand-alone music player.

Dead, and never launched in Europe. You've perhaps got to admire Microsoft's tenacity in keeping the product line alive through five long, lonely years; the name will live on - for now - as a store brand for selling music to the tiny Windows Phone market, and the more substantial Xbox community.

For now, though; It looks Redmond is planning to introduce another name for its multimedia services in the longer term. Ventura. For when offences against nature calls.

Microsoft does something with bands and wristbands

The XBox - which young people tell me is a bit like a Binatone TV game, only the gun costs extra - is about to.... um...

Xbox Unites Music Lovers With The Hottest Bands To Create a Nationwide Gig Tour With a Difference

Yes, that's what they're doing. They're bringing together music lovers with hot bands. Although if the band didn't already have fans, they wouldn't be that hot, would they?

Anyway, it's a "nationwide gig tour" - 'gig' is a word used by musicians to mean concert, you know - but it has a difference.

Xbox launches Xbox Reverb - a series of gigs that get the fans and the bands talking

At last! Those two factions have been at war for years. It's about time... oh, hang on: you said 'fans' and 'bands'? I misread that at first as 'Israelis' and 'Palestinians'. You might want to just make it a bit clearer that this is what you're talking about.

Thousands of music lovers around the UK will get the chance to help put on the gig of their dreams, as Xbox unveils a major new music initiative that gets the fans and the bands talking.

That's 'fans' and 'bands', right?

The gig of their dreams, huh? Now, nobody's going to be all silly and say "I'd really like to see The Beatles with John and Ringo bought back to life", are they? It's got to be plausible. I'm dreaming already - Ride, Sonic Youth and the Sugargliders. That'd be a set and a half. How do I make this happen?

Xbox Reverb, officially launched in London tonight with a gig featuring exclusive sets from Calvin Harris and Magistrates, will enable fans to collaborate with a selection of the UK’s hottest live acts to co-curate a series of gigs, tailor made by the Xbox Reverb community and the artists themselves.

Oh. So, it's the gig of my dreams, providing my dream involves Calvin Harris and Magistrates? Or other bands chosen by Microsoft?

Where do my dreams actually come in?

Upon signing up to the Reverb Facebook and Twitter groups, fans will be invited to provide their own personal input and suggestions into how the gigs should look and feel based on criteria set by the bands and by the Xbox Reverb team.

I don't want to sound like I'm Mussolini or someone, but if I'm getting the gig of my dreams, and I can't choose the bands, I'd at least hope that I get to shape things a bit more than merely working within "criteria set by the bands" and the people who bring you Excel Spreadsheets.

This feedback, which could include everything from deciding the set list to designing the flyer of the gig, choosing the support act and much more, will then be thrown open to the bands themselves and the most popular suggestions put forward.

Designing the flier, eh? That's certainly a way to save a few quid on the event by not having to pay a proper designer. How about also suggesting that fans get a unique chance to stand behind the bar decanting drinks and taking money from other fans, putting it in a till and cashing-up at the end of the night as well?

Let's be clear, though: The bands make the final choices. By which they mean the PR company working for Microsoft and the band's management.

The result will see a series of DIY gigs taking place around the UK from the end of September with a number of lucky winners being given the chance to attend the events themselves.

A series of DIY gigs, albeit one put on by one of the largest corporations in the world. And it's nice to see that some "lucky" winners will get the chance to, erm, go to a gig that supposedly has been designed by the community.

The first three gigs have already been announced and will see rockers Danananakroyd taking to the stage in Birmingham on September 29th, before Pulled Apart by Horses pull Leeds apart on October 5th with Esser to play an exclusive gig in December.

On the 29th? So there's less than a week for this crowd-sourcing to take place, is there? That's probably going to rule out too much in the way of surprises.

At the events, Xbox will also be giving out Reverb Passes...

Wow. That sounds nothing at all like the sort of thing you used to cut out from the back of a cereal packet.

...exclusive interactive wristbands to everyone who wants one...

One for everyone who wants one. The sort of exclusivity that money simply can't buy.

giving guests the chance to post live tweets, comments and status updates throughout the night automatically by simply swiping their Reverb Passes on Touchpoints planted around the venues.

God, imagine that. A special, exclusive wristband that everyone has which allows them to do something they couldn't otherwise do. Unless they had a mobile phone made some time in the last ten years on them.

Commenting on the campaign, Alex Weller, Brand Experience Manager, Xbox 360 said...

If ever a job needed the Mitchell And Webb Old Lady's Job Justification Panel running over it, "brand experience manager" would be right up there.

We’re really excited to be able hand over the reigns of these events to communities of music fans, giving them the chance to curate their own gigs with their favourite bands. The response to the Facebook and Twitter groups has been fantastic meaning we’re already seeing a community of people who, just like Xbox, are passionate about great music experiences and enjoying great social experiences together.

XBox - which, you'll recall, is a lump of plastic and some electronics - turns out to "enjoy great social experiences". Who knew? I think I once saw a Sega Saturn at a Glee Club, and my Uncle swears he dated a Atari for a couple of months back in the day, but I never knew that the XBox was so outgoing.

Microsoft come up with idea to make music "better"

Microsoft have lagged behind Apple in the music stakes, but they've come up with a cracking new idea to put themselves at the heart of the modern music world: they're coming up with a way to put DRM in peer-to-peer shared music.

Yes, that's right: you'll not only pay for the infrastructure and the data costs of the music sharing, but thanks to Microsoft, you'll also not actually own the tracks. Who couldn't fail to love that idea?

Information Week is saying this idea could "revive" peer-to-peer networks, as if they'd somehow vanished in the face of RIAA lawsuits. It's unlikely to even revive DRM, to be honest. Users have constantly made it clear they don't like digital locks - it's unlikely that they're going to embrace a system which expects them to distribute the padlocks when somebody else has the keys.

Poppa Zune flees Microsoft

Chris Stephenson, who has handled what's grandly being called "the global marketing" for Zune, has quit Microsoft for a role marketing at Universal Records.

Global marketing the Zune? That would be signing off the Canadian ads as well as the American ones, given that there's been no rush to increase the losses by launching the device overseas.

Interesting that someone is quitting a digital music service to join a record label. Either that's a tribute to the future of Universal, or just possibly an indication that there's not much future for the Zune division in its present form.

Microsoft "reveal" digital more green than physical

Yes, thanks for stating the bleedin' obvious, Microsoft and Intel, who have produced some figures to point out that downloading electronic files has less environmental impact that having to wait for someone to make a product, drive it to a store, and then take it home from there.

Tomorrow: Microsoft produce a graphic showing that it's easier to correct errors using a word processor rather than a typewriter.

Zune: Where's the life, there's hope

There's still hope for the Zune brand... no, really, apparently a new chip will change the game for the never-released-outside-North-America Microsoft iPod:

Graphics chip giant Nvidia has announced that the next iteration of the Vole's player, the Zune HD, will be armed with a dual-core Tegra processor.

Based on blueprints from Brit chip shop ARM, one of the two processor cores will take care of the operating system, and graphics duties will be taken over by an Nvidia Geforce GPU.

Yes. That's what people say when they find themselves in the dark corner of the electronics shop, looking at the forlorn, working-example-free Zune stand: "if only it had a dual processor, that would really sweeten the deal for me."

The problem for Zune is not performance of the equipment - those who own one speak highly of what it does - but is one of making a product which really manages to shift the perception that it's a me-too poor person's iPod from the people who make your office computer. That's got nothing to do with the chipset. Which is a pity for Microsoft, as a chipset can be easily replaced.

Zune struggling on

Yesterday in Target, noticed that they're still proudly offering the Zune, albeit with a large, nearly empty glass case. Not that Microsoft is bothered, as it's pushing on with its money-burning music player:

Zune HD is the next iteration of the Zune device family and brings a new level of listening and viewing experiences to the portable media player category.

*Zune HD comes with a built-in HD Radio receiver so users can listen to higher-quality sound than traditional radio on the go. Users also will have access to the additional song and artist data broadcast by HD Radio stations as well as additional channels from their favorite stations multicasting in HD. If you don't like the song playing on your station's HD channel, switch to its HD2 or HD3 channels for additional programming.

Yes, they've effectively added a DAB tuner to the Zune. If they sold in the UK, that would seem a touching degree of faith in the format, but in the US, this really has the air of adding a thing for getting stones out of horses hooves. You're competing with web-enabled devices that have streaming music devices coming out of their touchscreens, and you have the big idea of giving access to stations using a broadcast format that barely registers? Seriously?

The other Zune annoucement is a slightly disingenuous attempt to try and make the brand a success by pretending it's something else:

Zune will be a premium partner in the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace, bringing an exciting catalog of TV and film to the platform. Zune will occupy the first slot within the Xbox user interface in the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace, exposing the Zune brand experience to millions of new consumers for the first time. At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) next week, attendees will see firsthand how Zune integrates into Xbox LIVE to create a game-changing entertainment experience.

Well, they've spent all the money on the logo, but even so - wouldn't it make it more sense to call it XBox Entertainment or something less... tainted?

Mind you, Microsoft is rebranding its search as Bing. So perhaps things could be worse.

Microsoft: Ah, you've got to love them for trying, haven't you

Microsoft haven't quite given up on the Zune yet. Not quite. Look, they've made an advert with someone who got fired on the US Apprentice:



Ah yes. Rather than pay an entirely notional $30,000 to fill up an iPod, instead, make an open-ended commitment to pay Redmond fifteen real bucks a month until they finally get bored pouring millions away each year on the Zune and axe the product. Deal!

[via Engadget]

Redmond seeks SeeqPod

The death of SeeqPod is not, it turns out, the end - the corpse may yet be dug up and ripped to pieces. Microsoft are rumoured to be buying what remains of the company - not, naturally, to bring back the music search, but to use the technology at SeeqPod's heart to power a disappointing and poorly laid out multimedia search as part of... what are Microsoft calling their search these days? Windows HotLiveSearchMSN or something?

Qtrax decides it's not hobbled enough

Last time we mentioned perpetual online punchline QTrax, it generated a comment (from, I'm sure, a real person who genuinely cared about QTrax) suggesting that we're taking money from Apple in order to rubbish the competition.

We're not. And, frankly, QTrax isn't competing with iTunes. It might be up against the ghost of SpiralFrog and whatever it is Napster are doing now, but not iTunes.

Still, as if the repeated launching and then non-appearance of the service hasn't already made you wonder if it wasn't all a cosmic joke, then this press release from BuyDRM might:

BuyDRM, a Microsoft-licensed PlayReady DRM solutions and service provider, successfully launched its KeyOS Silverlight DRM offering with Qtrax. Utilizing BuyDRM’s KeyOS technology, Qtrax will be able to expand their customer base and increase revenues. The KeyOS Silverlight DRM Solution provides a dedicated, scaleable and robust platform for Qtrax to securely deliver content to the majority of Internet users.

Not just DRM, but DRM wrapped up in Silverlight? That's like someone not just spitting in your chips, but then wrapping the chips up tightly in gaffer tape.

"We have been using KeyOS for over a year now and have been highly anticipating the launch of Silverlight DRM powered by PlayReady. With support for PCs, Mac and soon Linux, the KeyOS Silverlight DRM Solution will allow us to tap into previously inaccessible audiences- immediately increasing our customer reach, relevance and revenue," said J. Christopher Roe, CTO of Qtrax.

This assumes, of course, that everyone who could run Silverlight will, and that's quite an assumption. Certainly, the NBA in America dropped Silverlight this season, giving as one reason that the need to install Micrsoft's product is a barrier to use.

Admitted, it's not an impossible barrier, but why choose something that requires a hefty install process? After all, what online music services are selling is convenience - and if you can get the same songs elsewhere more conveniently, why wouldn't you?

Still, you might just get away with it if you had prime mover advantage. Oh...

UK Zune soon?

Probably not, but that's not stopped everyone getting excited by the prospect of a new look Zune (or, more accurately, a Zune that desperately wants to be an iPod Touch), and even more rumours that it might actually be sold in places other than America and Canada. These rumours, of course, clash with the other rumours of an imminent demise of Zune as a brand. It wouldn't be entirely impossible for Microsoft's Zune division to be pushing ahead with expansion plans even as another part of the corporation is drawing up plans for liquidation, so you could quite happily choose to believe both of these claims.

Zune finally overhauls "other" mp3 players

What, exactly, are the millions Microsoft has poured into Zune getting it? Besides snarky headlines when they discover they can't cope with leap years?

Well, according to Piper Jaffray's biannual Teen Survey, not very much. The US teens surveyed reported Zune ownership at 4% which is, admittedly, up a percentage point on this time last year. But the iPod is at 86%, as high as it was this time last year - and, with a terrible symmetry, 4% higher than it was when the Zune launched.

In other words: Apple has increased its market share amongst teens at the same rate as Microsoft.

The real sting, though? 100% of the teens who intend to buy a new player this year say they're thinking of getting an iPod. Sure, some of those who go the store might be swayed by getting the same sort of thing in a Zune-shaped package for a little less (if they find them in the store), but to know that nobody thinks of your device as a default wish-list item must be a little disappointing.

[The survey only interviewed 600 teenagers; 19% said they intended to buy a new player in the next twelve months. Story via The Licensing Plate]

Zune falling behind

The awkward Zune New Year's Eve fail was bad, but as embarrassments go, that was mild compared with the latest set of figures from Microsoft: Coolfer is reporting that Zune revenues fell 54% in the last quarter of 2008 compared with the final quarter of 2007. Admittedly, the economy is looking a little sickly, but it won't be lost on Microsoft that the iPod continued a period of growth. Cue more mutterings about the long-term future for a device which is still lagging behind SanDisk, never mind Apple.

The Zune will go on

Microsoft? Thinking of dropping the Zune? Why, nothing could be further from the truth, apparently:

"Basically, what happened last week, Steve [Ballmer] said a couple of things about the category," said Adam Sohn, head of Microsoft's Zune marketing division, causing speculation that Microsoft would stop making Zunes. However, he clarified, "we're not getting out of the hardware business at all," adding that Microsoft is "deeply committed" to continuing to its Zune hardware strategy.

So, you've got Steve Ballmer, who runs the show, suggesting that Microsoft might be less interested in making Zune players; you've got the guy who runs the bit of the company that sells Zunes insisting that the Zune player has a happy and rosy future, and certainly you shouldn't not think about buying one. Oh no.

."The other thing Steve said, which is spot on with our strategy -- and unfortunately I think a lot of people we haven't talk to sort of took it and ran in the wrong direction -- is that we do think the Zune device is not the only place you will access the Zune experience," said Sohn. "A lot of people jumped to an 'either/or,' when in fact it's a 'both/and' situation."

Microsoft's first order of business is to deliver the Zune music service to Xbox and Windows Media Center. "We would be thinking about nailing experiences in our own platforms concurrently with, if not before we're thinking about going beyond that," said Sohn. The mobile space represents a particularly interesting opportunity for Microsoft, since it could involve developing apps for competitors like Apple and Google.

Talk of a Zune experience - and especially nailing those experiences - does at least leave you in no doubt that Sohn is a marketing guy. The question he doesn't address, but which hangs in the air, is if "the Zune experience" is about interacting Zunely with tunes through a Zune interface, then why would Microsoft continue to pour money down the drain on a loss-making hardware strategy?

Old Zunes struggle to make it into 2009

You really have to hand it to Microsoft: it might not have managed to make the Zune as popular as the iPod, but it's certainly managed to make it as reliable as Windows. Every 30G model of Zune has stopped working. The reason?

It doesn't believe that today exists:

On Wednesday evening Microsoft said it had traced the problem to a software bug “related to the way the device handles a leap year.” Apparently the Zune was expecting 2008 to have 365 days, not 366.

So, hey, it's only a problem which is going to occur every four years, so where's the drama?

The company said the internal clock on the players should automatically reset by noon Greenwich Mean Time on Thursday (7 a.m. Eastern time). Microsoft is advising Zune owners to allow the player’s battery to fully drain and then turn the devices back on on Thursday.

In other words: Your Zune won't work on the 366th day of a year, so wait until the year ticks back over to day one.

I try not to use Zune as a punchline, I really do. But a music player that won't work on New Year's Eve? It's like it wants to be laughed at.

Zune: your subscription is also a purchase

The price cut might have looked kind of desperate, but the attempt to raise interest in the Zune subscription by allowing some songs to be kept 'forever' is a much more interesting move by Microsoft.

I'm not entirely convinced, though, that the idea will work. Buying songs to keep forever is simple to explain. Renting songs you can listen to while you keep your subscription current is a clear proposition. Renting all the songs to listen to while you keep your subscription current, except for ten each month which you can keep even after your subscription lapses might be innovative, but it isn't easy to understand and will probably do as much harm as good - it stresses "most of your music will vanish if you stop paying" as much as "a handful of songs are yours forever".

Then there's the vexed question of how you actually keep the songs forever - ten a month from your bucket of songs introduces an admin task every four weeks. The Terms and Conditions explains:

You will also receive song credits for up to ten (10) downloads of audio sound recordings from Zune Marketplace during each month of your Zune Pass subscription, at no additional cost to you. Content purchased with these song credits may be used under the terms listed above in Section 14.1 and will not expire when your subscription ends. These song credits are non-transferable. Any unredeemed song credits will expire at the end of each monthly period and will not rollover to subsequent monthly periods.

It's not entirely clear from that if you have to buy with special magic credits at the outset, or if you can apply the credit to a tune you have already downloaded under your usual subscription, or if you have to go to the store and re-download the track all over again, this time with the golden pass.

PaidContent's Staci Kramer - who is a happy Zune user - wasn't any clearer:

Signing into Zune just now required accepting a new terms of service in an unnecessarily complicated multi-screen process. So far, I can't tell how I would know this option is supposed to be available—and I can't figure out how to make it work. For instance, when I add a song to the cart, then look at the cart, it's empty. Another variation brings up an error message. I'll try again in the morning.

A difficult sell with a complicated process attached? It's the great smell of Microsoft. Still, at least they're trying to fix the fundamental flaw of subscription services - why pay for something you can never own?

Zune: Deep pockets drive deep discounts

With still no sign of a Zune launch being rolled out in the wider world, Microsoft has announced price cuts across the range of players for the US. The guys in legal did stop them from rebranding the Zune as ValueIpod, though.

Common still shooting for the Zune

Yahoo tech news gets cautiously excited about Common's tie-up with Zune, although not too excited:

A video for the title track on hip-hop veteran Common's forthcoming album, "Universal Mind Control," begins with a digital music player pulsing to the beat. The viewer is pulled through the screen into the gadget's guts, where the cool, collected rapper lets loose an easy stream of lyrics.

It takes hitting rewind a few times to notice that the music player isn't one of Apple's slim new iPods. It's a Zune, and it's made by Microsoft Corp.

Perhaps Microsoft will feel flattered that you have to look closely to realise it's not an iPod, but a Zune. On the other hand, they could feel a bit deflated that unless you watch carefully and repeatedly, the average viewer is going to assume they're seeing the guts of an iPod.

At the other end of the telescope, there's a broader question of just how Common - a man paid by Microsoft to endorse their product - magically came up with a video which showcases, however ineffectually, a Microsoft product. Perhaps - let's be generous - Common decided on a video featuring a Fantastic Voyage into an MP3 player, and the Zune just happened to fit the vision.

On the other hand, did Microsoft ask him to make a video featuring a Zune somehow in return for their marketing cash. Which, of course, is not illegal but feels a whole less moral. If Common is selling his 'cool' and, by implication, his audience, then at the very least the deal should be made explicit.

In other words: Is Yahoo writing this puff piece because Common thinks the Zune is so cool, he built a video around it? Or is Yahoo writing the puff because Microsoft thinks Common is cool they gave him money?

AC-DC excel themselves

The tie-up with Wal-Mart might be lucrative, but it's hardly impressive. However, you can't help but be impressed with the band's boundary-breaking Exel-based music video: