About a month ago I started a personal experiment. I wanted to see how much I would like Zune Pass. Zune Pass is the subscription-based download service that accompanies the Zune software and Zune device as a component in Microsoft's Zune ecosystem. At the outset, I asked myself a few questions: Would I like it? How much would I use it? How would it work? Is this like Ruckus?

Recap

Personally, It has been quite a month of music discovery. I passed 10,000 total plays, broke the 5,000 song mark in my music collection, and fell in love with Goldfrapp. Among others, I "discovered" The Game, The Wombats, and Plastilina Mosh. My brother has discovered Bill Cosby and Korn. My mother has fallen in love with country music all over again. Talk about musical diversity. Along with simply downloading tracks and listening to them on your Zune, the subscription service also allows you to listen to your friends' music on your device. In addition, you are able to listen to music through the software without downloading it. This is known as streaming content. It is a process that is similar to listening to music on Last.fm and Pandora. These streamed plays are uploaded to your online Zune profile as registered plays. This is the same as tracks played on your device and computer. Aside from helping to populate the 'my social' page, your play information (the tracks that you listen to)  is not used to make further listening recommendations or help you find similar songs or artists that friends or other Zune users listen to.

Combined with the simple yet powerful interface of the Zune Marketplace, Zune Pass is an easy way to discover and listen to music. Julio was spot on when he likened the Zune Marketplace to browsing a brick & mortar music store. With Zune Pass, the added benefit is the ability to listen to any CD without leaving the store. Should you like it enough, you can take the music with you by syncing it to your device or downloading it to your PC. As long as you have a computer with  an internet connection and the Zune software, you have access to just under 3.5 million songs. That is a pretty sweet proposition. It would be nice to have internet-only streaming capabilities for times where installing the software is not feasible. Overall I like what I see.

 

Personal Usage

When I first stepped into the marketplace, as a new Zune Pass user, I was overwhelmed. There are 3.5 million tracks, where do I begin? To get a good sampling of music I started off with a few playlists. One of the first I chose to download was the Dance Hits Collection (Marketplace Link). Of the 99 tracks I downloaded and synced with my device, I ended up keeping roughly 52 of them. If I had tried the same sampling process, by purchasing the tracks individually, I would have wasted around $46.53 (at $0.99 a track) on tracks I did not like. That is roughly three months of Zune Pass + something from the dollar menu at McDonalds. I don't know about you, but for some songs it takes me a few listens to see if a track jives with me or not. A 30 second sample does not cut it. If you listen to more than sixteen tracks a month and need more than 30 seconds to assess the character of a song, then you will recuperate your monthly $14.99 investment in Zune Pass.

One of my initial assessments of the subscription service noted the ease of canceling the service. Zune Pass is tied to a single LiveID. This is the same account that provides the credit card information, which purchases the Zune Pass and renews the monthly (or tri-monthly) subscription. From that account, one can use three Zune devices and three computers to play, download, and sync content. The LiveID that I initially signed up for Zune Pass with was my own. I told my brother and mother to simply login to download music and but to be sure to make their own profiles so that their plays would not end up on my Zune card. For understandable reasons, this was not an agreeable solution. They would be sacrificing their ease of use by having to juggle two LiveID accounts. What we did instead was to resubscribe for a Zune Pass with a general account. I canceled the subscription to my account (with one click) and setup the family account. While somewhat sour, I did get a month of Zune Pass to myself out of it.

For some users, the usage scenario I just described creates a problem. If an individual wants to maintain their musical identity (as represented by the plays on their Zune Card) as well as partake in Zune Pass by listening to all the music they can, then that individual cannot allow others sharing the same Zune Pass to stream music through the Zune software. The LiveID paying for the service is the only account that is able to stream music. This prevents two other potential Zune Pass users from browsing the music store and allowing streamed plays to be a part of their musical identities. This was the subject of a wishlist thread in the Zune.net forums. The Zune Team has seen it. Let us hope they take this usage scenario to heart and allow in software streaming with LiveID's associated to the card holder's account.

Halfway through the month, I needed to replace my computer's motherboard. It was not until 9/4 that I rebuilt my computer (Foxconn tech support rocks BTW). Instead of calling off the experiment, I continued on. I was curious to see the flexibility of both the Zune software and Zune Pass, as well as try out some non-linked PC syncing situations. I finished out the experiment, using a media center PC I had built a few months earlier. After installing the Zune software and logging in, I was back to streaming and downloading music. No DRM errors or restarting the machine, the Zune software and Zune Pass just worked. When I first plugged my Zune in to the media center PC, the software alerted me to the fact that the device was linked to another computer. After acknowledging this fact and choosing to connect as a guest, I could drag and drop music onto my device. I did not loose any music as a result of connecting as a guest to my media center PC. Since my Zune was not linked with my media center PC, I could not auto sync. To get around this, I made a playlist aptly titled 'From MediaPC' to which I would add the tracks I directly from the marketplace. Overall, this extended functionality represents a powerful aspect of the Zune Pass. Your subscription service is computer agnostic, well... up to three PCs per month -- more if you call support to have your PC associations reset. It brings me back to a fact that I want to reiterate, as long as you have a computer with an internet connection and the Zune software, you are in business.

In the 15 or so days I was on my media center PC, I noticed a few oddities. Right now, it seems as if the guest sync functionality is not as polished as the linked sync experience. Even when I was logged in, my linked Zune would not update its plays through the software. I think this is simply because I was not at my "home" PC. However, this differs in functionality from an initial experience I had with my brother's unlinked Zune and my Zune account. At his PC, when we started using Zune Pass with my account, his plays showed up on my Zune card, even though his Zune was not linked with any PC. Why would a linked Zune not sync play information but an unlinked Zune sync play information? Another Oddity I noticed has to do with Zune cards from friends. Before my main PC died, I tried out syncing a few of my friend's Zune Cards to my Zune. Listening to their music on my device is cool. I ended up adding a few of their tracks to my collection...from my device! However, the first time I connected my Zune to the media center PC, the three tracks I decided to add to my permanent collection got synced to the media PC. Clearly, this feature was intended for collection continuity between a linked PC and Zune. However, when connecting as a guest, noting should automatically sync to or from my Zune. While connected as a guest, space management proved to be more difficult than it could have been. With a linked PC, size amounts are provided for each song on your Zune device. This was not the case for managing my Zune from my media center PC. As a result, it made freeing up space a guessing game as opposed to a bit of mb arithmetic. However, I did note that size amounts would start to appear as I reverse synced songs that I wanted to play from the software.

Finally, I came across one problem that may raise an eyebrow for some. I noticed that some songs were not able to be sent via wi-fi. However, when viewing the rights to the song in the software, there is no mention of wi-fi sending rights. I do not think this is the Zune Teams fault. Instead I want to place the blame on close minded music executives who fear loosing money to piracy. The same goes for tracks that are only available for purchase as well as tracks that may disappear from Zune Pass availability.

 

A message to the decision makers of track availability:

I am less likely to buy a track if I am already part of a music subscription service. I would rather use "other means" to acquire the unavailable track than pay you again for the right to own it. I am trying to do the right thing and you are pushing me back underground. Stop it. That's like paying full price at Costco even though I'm already a member.

 

vs. Ruckus

Other than the fact that both services use a Windows media audio (.wma) digital might management delivery system, there is not as much of a similarity between Ruckus and Zune as I anticipated. The Ruckus website is heavily ad supported. So much so it gets to the point of being annoying. To add music to my Ruckus collection, I am required to browse the Ruckus website and then download a file that tells the software what songs to download. The Ruckus software is ad supported as well. One thing in common with both players though is their lack of adherence to general Vista program appearances. Where are the translucent borders? Although, in both cases, the programs look fine doing their own thing. Another similarity includes Ruckus' ability to track your played songs through an online profile. However, since so few people (in my experience) know about the feature and generally use the Ruckus service (in college, iPods win man), it is pretty much a moot point. One major place where the Zune Marketplace excels is its consistent labeling of music. With Ruckus, the track artists are sometimes in all capital letters or have the featured artist as part of the artist's name. Do you know how annoying this is when you are trying to consolidate a music collection purely by artist and have to remove FEAT. / ft./ featuring from a number of tracks? Overall, the integration between device, software, and music repository, is very much in Zune's favor. Since Zune Pass downloaded tracks work on the same types of device that would use the Ruckus platform, I believe  my college should drop Ruckus and go with Zune. Between the two, Zune provides a richer experience that I am sure a lot more kids my age would use if it were free and they could use any plays for sure 'Certified for Vista' mp3 player. Now... if only I could get my college to subsidize a campus-wide Zune Pass instead of Ruckus and for Zune to allow other devices into its ecosystem.

 

Conclusions

For me at least, there is something different about renting as opposed to owning music. I have less musical loyalty to bad songs. This means I will be more likely to get rid of tracks I do not like and try out new ones. I know lots of people who are digital packrats and keep every track, lest they miss something. To me, Zune Pass makes this less of a necessity. Zune does the storing, you just have to do the listening. Keep only the tracks you want, delete those you hate. The GB saved adds up.

Before, Julio discussed the pros and cons of the Zune Pass subscription service. Along the way he used a particularly relevant analogy of comparing Zune Pass to a cable or satellite television subscription. I mention this because renting music is still a relatively new or unheard of prospect for most people (iTunes wins man). To that end I have say, there is nothing wrong with the idea of renting music. Paying a flat rate and getting all you can hear is a nice deal. However, there are problems in the implementation of this process. Extending the cable metaphor, what if new hits were available for paid download for a number of weeks and then made part of the general subscription collection after that period of par-for-listen expired?

Overall, Zune Pass works great. The Zune Marketplace --> device--> online profile integration is solid. Streaming tracks is awesome. In the one user, one computer environment the subscription service flies. Outside of that things get a bit hairy, as far as convenience is concerned. However, the fun never comes to a stop. While syncing a linked Zune with another computer or having a family share a Zune Pass may be difficult, it is not impossible. In this case, the devil is in the details of different usage scenarios. For a software service that has been out less than a year (remember, Zune 2.0 was a ground-up rewrite) I would say Zune Pass does exceptionally well for what it sets out to accomplish. Yeah, it may be a little rough around the edges, but when it comes down to it, it just works. At the end of the day, that is all that matters. Zune Pass just works.

 

Part 3 (the final chapter), a sampling of my usage notes will be coming tomorrow.