I've been on hiatus for a while, thinking about the world and what not. In terms of music, I've been thinking: What the hell are people listening to these days?! I haven't been able to listen to the radio anymore. Radio, as a matter of fact is dead to me.
Ok, let's step back and examine this: The music industry is bloated, filled with non talent and mediocracy and has become more about image than actual music.
What happened? How did things deterioate so fast? Am I too old? Did I miss the memo? People actually "like" a band called LMFAO. How did this happen??!! I listened to their songs. That's the most terrible thing I've ever heard. Is that what people are really wanting?
I blame the kids. These kids are destroying the music industry. They are the consumers and they seem to be "demanding" this stuff and the music industry is delivering this junk. They did the same thing with Reality television and now I can't go anywhere without those darn Kardashians in my face. Don't let me get started on Snooki....
But I digress. Where's all the good music? I thank God for musicians like Adele who actually have talent and can sing without much music studio engineering. Have you heard some of these musicians on a live set? They are horrible at best. Can't hold a note to save their lives and yet people "love" it.
Female music artists have an image problem. If you can't sing well but you're hot, believe me, your chance of getting a music deal is high. Rihanna is a perfect example. A very hot looking female who can dance on stage but give her a mic and a live performance and you might as well listen to Lil Wayne singing in autotune (too harsh?).
Everything is automated and robotic now. Anyone can go into the studio, lay down horrible vocals and the sound engineers have to do a LOT of tweaking to make it ok and they can say they "made" music. Anybody heard Kim Kardashian's song? Don't! Your ears might bleed.
Justin Bieber can't sing. Face it Bieber fans, he can't sing. He has talent on a drumset and can dance but he can't sing. He reminds me of the Jonas Brothers. A fad which will go away quickly when the next best thing comes along.
Even the quality of rap music is awful these days. There are a lot of rappers who are featured a lot on blogs and twitter but I've listened to their music. Garbage! Awful! They make absolutely no sense. If you thought Waka Flaka was good, your ear drums are busted.
The music industry is moving slowing from quality sound to visual overload. I like Katy Perry. I like her songs. But she needs to tone it down on the looks. Seriously, Kate Perry, you keep flashing us your boobs like we're children in need of milk. Sing your songs and keep your decency. I'm looking at you too Lady Gaga. Love the music but these outfits are becoming you and your music is not being taken seriously.
At least, there is still some music talent left in the industry. Not all is lost. But I'm slowing fearing we might be drowning in mediocrity with all this useless talent coming up in the music industry. So please, do me a favor and support "good" musicians. Good quality music is hard to find these days.
Now, if you excuse me, I have to go listen to this new Coldplay album someone sent me to preview. It sounds so good......
There was this great post, done on Zune Insider, called “What We’re Listening To” where members of Zune Nation (Zune staff, MVPs, etc) would share what has caught their ear during that given week. I always thought this was an excellent thing to do, so I’m bringing it to Inside the Circle (who only knows if it will continue on Zune Insider or not).
Therefore, periodically, you can check here to see what various members of Zune Nation are listening to. Use it as a starting point to expand your ears or to learn a bit more about what makes your fellow Zune Nation brethren tick.
Ready for this issue’s submissions?
Contributor: David Collins, GameFocus.ca
This week I went in the pop/club/let’s-shake-our-booties direction, which is a bit odd considering the issues I’ve been dealing with here at home. Nevertheless, both Brit-Brit (Britney Spears to you laymen) and Joe Jonas (of the Jonas Bros) ended up with my attention....and on my playlists.
Yes, I was fairly surprised myself.
Britney’s B In The Mix, The Remixes Vol 2 is, as the title implies, a remix album of some of her previous hits. While there won’t be any radio singles to come off it, it should please the club-goers with no problem, especially the mixes of 3, Womanizer, and If You Seek Amy.
With Joe Jonas’ Fastlife, I had no expectations at all, except maybe more of the bubble gum popping tracks he and his brothers are known for. Again, to my surprise there was some decisively decent singles there, all with a heavy emphasis on love and relationships. He does try to grab some of the club scene himself toward the end of the album, but it falls pretty flat. Sorry Joe, Brit has you beat there.
My playlists gained a few notables including All This Time, Just In Love, and See No More. Love Slayer and Make You Mine also stand out fairly well and will certainly see some more rotation from me.
Contributor: William Deveraux, AnythingbutiPod / Zune MVP
Soundtracks (specifically scores) are my favorite genre, so I’m still enjoying the third and final volume of the free Portal 2 soundtrack. Star Wars is also always near the top of my recently played list. Over on the podcast side, I’m continuing to enjoy Windows Phone Radio, especially with the long-awaited release of the Mango update a few weeks ago. I also started listening to two new podcasts: enConnected Live and CrowdGadgets. Both of these podcasts started up recently, and I had the honor of joining them in the role of guest and host, respectively. Finally, I had a chance to sit down and check out the new streaming music video feature for Zune Music Pass subscribers, which is pretty cool. It’s not perfect, but it’s a neat feature to have.
I feel fortunate because I can actually share some of the Kpop/Jpop that I’ve been listening to these past few months. I just recently noticed that some of the stuff I’m hearing *is* available in the Zune Marketplace (go figure). So if you want to expand your ears past the US shores, here’s some suggestions:
One of my favorite international boy bands is 2pm. They have great harmony and do some pretty catchy stuff. Namely, I’m enjoying their EP that includes the song “Don’t Stop Can’t Stop”. I’ve seen these guys perform quite a few times on the MNET channel and have always enjoyed their performances.
On the girl side of life, you should check out the group “4 Minute”. Apparently, their claim to fame is that they can hit you with the awesome in 4 minutes or less. If you look at the amount of time each song is on the available albums, you’ll understand. Specifically, check out their album “4Minutes Left”.
One more cool female Kpop group is Miss A. Check out their album “Step Up”.
That’s it for this week’s edition. Thanks to our contributors, William and David. Catch you next time when we share what’s hitting our ears.
[Ed: Let me just state, for the record, we have too many award shows. Yet since this involves music...]
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Recording artists Nicki Minaj and Pitbull revealed the "2011 American Music Awards®" (AMAs) nominees this morning from the J.W. Marriott Los Angeles L.A. LIVE. Katy Perry and Pitbull were announced as performers for the 39th annual AMAs. Additional acts and presenters will be announced in the coming weeks.
The show will be broadcast live from the NOKIA Theatre L.A. LIVE on SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20th (8:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT) on ABC.
Adele leads this year with four (4) nominations. Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne, Rihanna, Taylor Swift and The Band Perry follow with three (3) nominations each, and Beyonce, Bruno Mars, Chris Brown, Jason Aldean, Kanye West, LMFAO, Nicki Minaj and Pitbull collected two (2) nominations respectively. This year's 2011 Artist of the Year nominees are: Adele, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne and Taylor Swift.
For the fifth year, winners will be determined by online voting. Fans can vote at the Coca-Cola AMA voting website, amavote.com, as well as AMA.abc.com. Artists will be honored in the categories of Pop/Rock, Country, Rap/Hip-Hop, Soul/R&B, Alternative, Adult Contemporary, Latin, and Contemporary Inspirational. Fans can go to the official homepage of the "2011 American Music Awards," ama.abc.com, to find performer and presenter announcements, artist information, and more.
In addition, music fans will be able to vote for the Sprint New Artist of the Year Award. For the first round of voting beginning Tuesday, October 11 through Friday, October 21 at 9:00 p.m., ET, fans will be able to determine who will make up the final award nominees by voting via text message from the list of artists available online at ama.abc.com or using their mobile phones at amanewartistoftheyear.com Music fans will be able to vote an unlimited number of times on all available platforms for the Sprint New Artist of the Year Award. All fans can send a text message by using 22288 and the number corresponding to their favorite artist. In addition, votes can also be cast via the internet at ama.abc.com. Standard messaging and data rates will apply. The top four artists with the highest votes from the first round of voting will be the final award nominees of the Sprint New Artist of the Year Award. Voting for the award winner will begin October 24 and conclude during the American Music Awards on November 20 at 9:00 p.m., ET.
So to put the exclamation point on Neville's recent article, the Zune HD is no longer in production. This was finally confirmed by both Windows Phone Radio hosts Matt Akers and Brian Seitz, plus the support page that was originally taken down is now back up on zune.net. Now we all can put to rest that question of "Are they or aren't they?" and say that going forward Zune will be available on Xbox 360, Windows PCs and Windows Phones...well also Bing Entertainment and Zune.net.
I, for one, am still not subscribing to this idea that my Windows Phone (as great as it is) could handle my musical needs. What's great about the Zune HD (and what most failed to understand) was that it handled media needs brilliantly. I could sync all kinds of playlists, TV shows, movies, podcasts, etc and know that when I go to listen or watch something, I don't have to worry about tile/toast notifications, incoming text messages or being disturbed by a call from Mom. The Zune HD was my media escape from the world.
Now, as Neville so awesomely points out, if you want any kind of Zune portable experience, you have to invest in a Windows Phone. Um, no. I don't think people should have to make a long term (2 years or so) investment just to get Zune's experiences. Also, Windows Phone can't handle the awesome now playing screen animations that are on the Zune HD. I guess the compensation for that is having the artist appear on the lock screen, but even that loses luster after about 5 artists or so.
So now, your introduction to Zune is either through the free PC software, the expensive Xbox 360 or the (in-time) expensive Windows Phone 7. There's really not an introductory (read: inexpensive way) to introduce someone to this Zune ecosystem. The software is fine, but what if they want to take that music they got off Zune Music Pass with them?
What's the introductory portable solution?
Even Apple, with their iPod Touch, I'm sure understands that it (plus the Nano/Shuffle, to an extent) allow people less costly ways to get into their ecosystem. Microsoft needs an equivalent to this. Zune HD would've filled that void nicely and why not a $99 Zune HD 16GB?
If you're a parent, who doesn't want to give your kid a Windows Phone, but they want to take music with them what are they going to do?
KIN, as skewed as people made it out to be, could've been this device that would've made a great starter media player. Remove that nonsense with Verizon and the data plan, make it a Wi-Fi only device (hell, even remove the phone from it) and this -- right along side the Zune HD -- would've made a nice portable device line up for Microsoft.
But now we don't have that. We have a great Zune experience at home, but on-the-go still leaves a hole missing. And don't even think tablets are going to fill that area? We need a media player, some sort of portable device.
Either that or people will use Windows Media Player (since it can read MP3s) and connect some player to that, but now you've reached the territory of unnecessary technology connections and non-elegance.
In any event, if you want a Zune HD for yourself, better seek one out...and fast!
This past week Microsoft introduced a tweaked version of Zune Pass at a lower price. In addition, they announced that they would not make any more Zune HDs – or maybe they did not, I am not 100% sure. Let us take a look at news that happened and had some affect on Zune Nation over the past week, shall we?
10/3 Monday: Windows Phone announced the progress in updating all users to Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” was running ahead of schedule. Rhapsody announced its intent to buy Napster, in a bid to fight Spotify.
Microsoft ushered in changes to its Zune Pass music subscription service. The price lowered to $9.99. Zune Pass was renamed Zune Music Pass. Lastly, the service is available now, in Canada. In essence the new Zune Music Pass is very similar to options from new service upstarts like MOG, Spotify, Rdio, and veterans like Rhapsody+Napster (Rhapster?). Missing from the new Zune Music Pass service are Zune’s former marquee feature of Keep 10 and any addition of a cost effective music subscription option for families.
As a result of the introduction of Zune music Pass, changes to the Zune website were made to reflect Microsoft’s current Zune offering. One thing was missing. The Zune HD. A Zune support page revealed the Zune HD was d-e-a-d, dead.
“We recently announced that, going forward, Windows Phone will be the focus of our mobile music and video strategy, and that we will no longer be producing Zune players. So what does this mean for our current Zune users? Absolutely nothing. Your device will continue to work with Zune services just as it does today. And we will continue to honor the warranties of all devices for both current owners and those who buy our very last devices. Customer service has been, and will remain a top priority for us.”
10/4 Tuesday:Or was Zune dead? Late Monday afternoon Michael Yaeger, in charge of Zune PR, tweeted the Zune HD product page was removed in error when the Zune Team updated Zune.net. On Twitter, Zune Support also said something similar. The Zune Support page, stating in in essence that Zunes would no longer be produced and containing the quote above, disappeared. The Zune HD is not dead? Still, how does one ‘CTRL’ + 'Z’ that mistake?
These shenanigans were overshadowed by Apple’s. Tuesday saw introduction of the new iPhone 4s, along with new iPod Nanos and iPod touches. When talking about music, in particular, a few quotes from Tim Cook and Phil Schiller struck me as interesting, my thoughts accompany the attributed quotes,
“Music for us is iTunes and iPod.” TC – What is music for Microsoft? Zune Software and ____ ? Xbox is gaming and more recently entertainment. Windows Phone puts people first. Even if Music is Zune software and Windows Phone what about those who cannot afford smartphones? Tough cookies? Most smartphones are roughly $2,000 investments when service and a two year contract are figured in. Without a Zune HD, all is left for sale are $2,000 Zunes. Even when purchased secondhand, there are not many around.
“[iPod] not only revolutionized the way we all listened to music but it revolutionized the whole music industry… it reminded all of us how much we loved music, and made it so simple to enjoy again.” TC – Now Marques has a different take on this, but again I think Schiller was referring to the mp3 player landscape at the time in 2001. Remember Rio? Remember Creative? Remember Dell? Remember Plays for Sure?
“Almost half of [the 45 million iPods sold from June 2010-11] are going to people who are buying their first iPod. And many are going to people who are just being introduced to Apple through the iPod.” TC – Though the mp3 player marketplace may be mature, it sounds like there is still room to make some sales. The auto industry is a mature market and upstart electric car maker Tesla seems to be doing well.
“We started the iPod simply because we love music and that hasn’t stopped we still love music and we’re still making great iPods.” PS – Out of context, I thought this sounded like a jab at Monday’s Zune news. Now I am not so sure.
What do I take from these quotes? At Apple, I see Music is important as it managed to find around 20 million new customers last year to buy its iPods. When compared to the actions at Microsoft this week, I see Music must not be too important as the company cannot make up its mind whether it wants to keep making mp3 players or bet all the money on Windows Phone.
10/5 Wednesday: Video did kill the radio star. Perhaps Music is not as big as TV and Cable. Xbox announced a wide ranging partnership with a number of cable and content providers to bring live TV or on-demand content to Xbox. These providers include Comcast, Verizon FiOS, SyFy, Bravo, and a number of others depending on your region. The update that provides the content from these cable and content providers should happen sometime this holiday season. As Marques noted, Zune is a content provider in this new entertainment wonderland.
One more thing happened on Wednesday. Early in the evening came news that Steve Jobs lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. Arguably the iPod is the single reason for Zune’s existence. I wonder what Steve would have to say about cancelling an mp3 player one day, saying “oops” the next, and then announcing a worldwide content partnership with cable providers in the same day. It certainly is not the most direct or simple way to do business.
10/6 Thursday: ComScore released its findings on smartphone market share for the past three months. In the report ComScore noted that Microsoft dropped from 5.8% to 5.7% in terms of overall smartphone users. In addition, it was reported that listening to music was the activity that saw the third largest percentage gain as an activity among all smartphone users. In August of this year 20.7% of all smartphone users played music on their devices, up from 18.6% in May of this year. Even though more people are listening to music on their smartphone, fewer people are doing it with Windows Phone.
Also, Rdio, a streaming service that does offer a discount for families who stream music through their service, announced a new free tier to their music offerings. This offering allows the user to stream 12 million tracks on demand via the Rdio website or using desktop application for Windows or OS X. Some saw this as an effort to compete with MOG and Spotify.
10/7 Friday: I received an email telling me that Zune and Xbox would be combining their email marketing efforts with Xbox taking the lead, the relevant text is below. I suppose this is the end of Zune emails. I should have seen it coming, considering a 10/3 email I received announcing Zune Music Pass which featured Xbox regalia.
“We are writing to inform you of a change to your Zune and Xbox accounts. We have combined account preferences for Zune and Xbox, including your preference for receiving marketing communications. Since you are both a Zune and Xbox customer with a Zune opt-in setting of YES, as of October 3rd, 2011 you will continue to receive communications from us. These communications will be from Xbox instead of Zune, but will contain relevant information for you based on your engagement with Zune and other services and games on Xbox LIVE.”
Now: And now for something completely different. The Zune HD is not dead. It’s pining (beautiful plumage). So, even if Zune is not dead, it looks like email communications from Zune exclusively are no more. Even if the Zune HD is a zombie it appears that Windows Phone is now the music + video focus… well it did as of Monday afternoon. Now? Not so sure.
Good bye value, hello $2,000 Zunes. How do $2,000 Zunes help families? Not everyone can afford smartphone and its required data plan on most US carriers. Of the 22 million new iPod owners I would wager a good number are iPod Nano and Shuffle owners. What I cannot understand is why discontinue an mp3 player, (effectively) its brand, and hope people will purchase a more expensive smartphone with declining market share? For Zune Nation this has been a crazy week, we will weather it. On the bright side, the week is over. On the not-so-bright there are probably fewer of us coming out on the other side. Happy weekend, get on with it.
I told myself I wouldn't talk about this much but this is making my head spin more times than Linda Blair in the Exorcist (and causing similar stuff to appear inside of my mouth). For all of the hoopla about iPhone4S-WTF? and now Xbox TV, many questions are still swirling around about the 'left foot in, left foot out' approach to the status of the Zune HD.
For every tech article that went up and said that the Zune HD is officially done, another article had to go up that said "Hold up, wait a minute". Some blogs are looking like they're having point/counterpoint discussions with themselves. And frankly, this just puts Zune in a very binding spot.
Let's assume that the Zune HD *is* in fact not going to be produced any longer. The consensus will say that the support message and the non-inclusion of the Zune HD under products on Zune.net should've just stayed. If the Zune HD *is* going to be continued in some fashion, then everything that's gone on looks like a curious case of incompetence.
Then you get the whole interaction between Zune Support and a Twitter user. Yeesh, people!
Microsoft right now is riding a wave of excitement: Windows 8, Xbox TV (and the companion Windows Phone app), Windows Phone Mango, Zune Music Pass *finally* reaching Canada, the updates to Hotmail, as well as a whole host of stuff that I'm sure will be coming down the pike. It would behoove them to address this Zune HD thing once and for all. That way they can put it behind them and continue on down this path to awesomeness that they're on.
For as long as this lingers, whether intentional or not, it just shines a light on the Zune brand that's more like the light Alan Wake shines on the shadows. A light that just makes you want to shrivel up and disappear.
Ok, right off the bat, I kept the $14.99 plan. There was no way you're taking 10 free songs each month from me. I'm probably one of those people who uses that feature religiously. That's $10 worth of music that isn't necessarily coming out of my pocket, especially since I get $15 worth of streaming from my PC, Windows Phone 7 (on new release days) and Xbox 360 (makes for great Sunday afternoon listening).
So I wanted to discuss a bit about the music video streaming feature that's been added as part of the plan. Whether you have the new or the classic plan, you now have this ability to stream most (not all) of the music videos available in the Zune Marketplace. Much like the music, some videos aren't available for streaming (thank the labels, most likely).
All you have to do is go find a video and hit the play button. When that video is done, go find another one and wash, rinse, repeat.
Wait, what?
Yeah, there really isn't an easy way to take advantage of music video streaming at the moment. It was what I was afraid of. After 20 minutes of sitting there and cherry picking videos, I grew tired of it. I would've much rather downloaded the song and listen to that on repeat. For me, right now, music video streaming isn't intuitive enough to be valuable to me, especially on the PC.
I'm hoping that with the new Xbox update in the Fall that the Zune app gets a makeover and makes the music video streaming more intuitive. I would love to have a way to just line up a bunch of music videos in a row and just let them play. Currently, in the Xbox 360 Zune App, if you go to the section about "ME" and you go to the music videos that you personally purchased, there is a way to just "Play All" and let them run. When you host a party for friends, having these music videos just run on a screen or even a projector outside on a large wall, would be ideal and awesome.
Right now, though, I can't really see myself getting value out of streaming music videos. It's nice for a quick hit of something (puff, puff, give) but when you wanna sit and have that long tote, it's not kosher. (Don't do drugs, kids!)
What do you you guys think of music video streaming? What could be done to make that more of a value-add for Zune Pass subscribers?
For a point of reference I am calling the 3 PC’s, 3 devices plan, Zune Pass Classic and the newer 1 PC, 3 devices option Zune Music Pass.
In short, I am surprised and left with more questions than answers. Zune Music Pass does nothing to help families adopt the service. In the time that I have been an MVP and Zune Pass Classic has existed, one of the largest amount of criticism I have heard about the service is the specific lack of a family plan. Perhaps other hear different requests concerning Zune Pass. In recent months I would suggest that more chatter has focused on moving the service to other smartphone platforms, via targeted apps for different mobile operating systems; but Zune Pass for families has always been a topic of interest. I think it remains popular in part because when using Zune Pass Classic the functionality many would expect of a family plan is almost there, but not quite.
Using Zune Pass Classic there is no way to stream music from any account other than the account paying for Zune Pass. Ideally, a hypothetical family plan,
Would have been one that allowed people to have individual, child, Live ID accounts under a paying, parent, Live ID account at the old cost of $14.99 a month.
Would allow child accounts to have the same ability as the parent account with regards to streaming music from a PC, Zune device or Windows Phone, Xbox 360, and web. All plays using various streaming methods would count as plays towards the Zune card of the child account and not that of the paying parent account.
Would have Zune Pass tracks sync to devices of a child Live ID without having to sign into the parent Live ID to complete the syncing process.
The ability to add a fourth PC/device combo to the $14.99 base price would be available for a nominal fee similar to adding another line of service to a family wireless cellphone plan.
Considering this ideal and then considering the current reality, the new Zune Music Pass does not address the issues families face such as managing multiple users, streaming from a Live ID not paying for the Zune Pass, and multi-user discounts for more than one Live ID within a household. If anything, it exacerbates the problem in households that have more than one PC or Live ID.
Looking at the remaining functionality of Zune Pass Classic when used within a family, you can sync music to a Zune device that is associated, but not linked by Live ID, to the parent account. In addition, you can downloaded Zune Pass music to one of the three authorized PCs and then play it using a separate Zune account. However, that is all you can do with Zune Pass Classic when used within a family-- barely sync music to a Zune device and barely play music from a PC. As a result, the process for discovering music, as a child account, using Zune Pass Classic is slow and cumbersome.
How do I know music discovery is slow and cumbersome? With a few exceptions, this is how I have been using Zune Pass since I first reviewed the service in 2008. It has not been fun. My play count has suffered because of lost streaming opportunities. I am sure others in Zune-centric families have missed out on streaming opportunities due to the difficult nature of using Zune Pass within families. In the three years I have used the service nothing has happened to make using a Zune Pass easier for families with multiple Live IDs. In addition, it has not become less expensive to use the service as being part of a family of four. From my initial review,
“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.”
To extend what I said about this usage scenario being a problem: The experience of using Zune within families has gone from being a problem in Zune Pass Classic to just terrible with Zune Music Pass.
Now come the questions.
Is Zune Music Pass the best compromise for families? Not really. For $5 less you are loosing two PCs and 10 free songs each month. Syncing music in multi-PC scenarios just became impossible when using the new Zune Music Pass. For a prospective family with three PCs trying to emulate Zune Pass Classic under the Zune Music pass model, a 30% price cut from $14.99 to $9.99 just became a 50% price increase, going from $14.99 to $29.97. Now, Mom cannot play Zune Pass tracks downloaded to her PC while Dad does the same in the study. Want two PC’s from which you can sync different music and videos to different Zunes? That’s another Live ID and another $9.99 a month. Using a Zune at college (if you do not have a Zune HD or your college uses a WPA 2 Enterprise wireless network) just became a lot more difficult, if the only authorized PC is miles away at home. Do not forget to add a third $9.99 charge when heading off to school and using the new Zune Music Pass.
In addition, Zune Music Pass still does not allow multiple Live IDs within one account. How does a parent manage the bill of a separate Live ID with another password to remember? How is adding another $9.99 a month for the ability to play music from a second PC supposed to better compete with the likes of Spotify, Mog, Rhapsody, or Rdio? If anything it is more of the same. Zune has never been more of the same, it has always been something different. If this price is supposed to be competitive with those services and you do not own an Xbox or Zune device what is the allure of a family choosing Zune over the competition? Where is the value?
Take Rdio for example. A single comparable subscription is $9.99 per month. At that price you can play music on the web, PC, smartphone, Roku, and Sonos. This is the same price as Zune Music Pass. Rdio even has an app that works with Windows Phone 7. Recently Rdio introduced a family plan that reduces the price when multiple subscriptions are stacked together on one paying account. Rdio called this a family plan. How did Rdio introduce a family plan before Zune? Using Rdio in a family of three would cost $22.99 versus a price of $29.97 under the new Zune Music Pass (oddly bits of this functionality fit quite well within Zune Pass Classic, at the price of $14.99 per month). Is the ability to stream music videos, and stream from an Xbox or Zune worth an extra $6.98 per month? Speaking of Xbox, how did offering a family plan escape Zune when Xbox offered a family plan in the past?
Thinking about Zune Music Pass in Canada leaves me wondering where the Zune devices are for non-smartphone owners and people already locked into three year cellphone contracts. Further, how are all the non-Zune users in Canada going to hear about this change? Currently, the amount of press coverage Zune Pass receives is paltry compared to other music streaming services. Considering these points, there is too much missing to be excited for this news about changes to Zune’s music subscription service. This is my take. What is yours?
Zune Social: 
Zune Social: 
