One of the favorite features of those with a Zune Pass subscription are the 10 free credits they get every month. One credit can be used to download any available song in the Marketplace. Well, let's backtrack that. If the song is available for individual purchase, then you can use a credit for it. Credits can't be used for any video nor can it be used towards an 'album only' purchase.

Now some individuals reach a dilemma when they see that they have 10 new credits to use: How exactly am I going to choose which songs I want to have permanently. In a recent software release, Zune attempted to make that easier by including a little link in the upper-right corner, underneath the ZuneTag. When you click this link, which looks something like "Credits (10)", you are presented with a menu that's similar to the music purchase screen. After a few minutes, the software will present 10 songs to you and ask if these are the songs that you want to use your credits for.

How does it know which songs to recommend? It takes the top 10 Zune Pass songs you've been listening to (based upon play count) and offer you those first. There's even a little marker that will tell you if the tracks are in MP3 format or protected-WMA format (yes, some of those still exist).

Another way that Zune helps with the 10 credits issue is in the Marketplace. If you look around you'll find playlists that are exactly 10 songs deep. That's because it's designed to be a playlist you could use your 10 credits for. It could range from 10 songs by a particular artist to 10 songs revolving around a particular theme.

Now, as an MVP, I enjoy offering people small tips on how to get the best out of their Zune experience and one of those tips is to click that Credits (10) link underneath their Zune Tag. Yet, recently, when I clicked on that link, I don't even end up getting any of the 10 songs that are recommended to me. What I end up doing is going into the album view, changing the music presented to "Zune Pass Content" and then going through there and individually choosing my own songs. I've found this to be much more satisfying than blindly letting the software choose for me. Even if they are 10 songs I listen to a lot, is that a guarantee that they'll be the ones that I'll choose when the credits become available? I mean hell, there are times when I will take 2 credits and pick a totally random song from the Marketplace. That's how I ended up with gems like the Jeffree Star song "Prisoner".

So my question is how do you approach using your 10 credits? Do you use the recommended songs feature quite often or do you pick and choose at your own leisure? How do you think the credits feature could be improved as far as helping people decide which songs to use them on?

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