Derek and Melissa’s Family

The Zune Zealots

by Derek—2006.11.10 @ 1006

Microsoft’s eagerly anticipated music player, the Zune, is getting a lot of press lately. I, like many others, am interested to learn more about the product and see what it has to offer. Unlike many manufacturers eager to have people review their product before it is released, Microsoft has only released a few Zune players for official reviews. The rest of the newsmedia are left with published specifications to then write their own early opinions.

I’ve been to several of these “reviews” lately, most of them opinion stories, but one thing that struck me was the amount of user comments on each story. I entertained myself by reading some of the comments, and I noticed a common thread: Zune Zealotry. As anticipated, there are a lot of iPod-haters out there, who accept the Zune simply because it is not an iPod. However, what was strange to read were the comments that lambasted the journalist for writing an opinion about published specifications without actually test-driving the Zune.

Many comments were suspiciously the same in tone:

I stopped reading at “haven’t played with a Zune yet (though I intend to).”

Many other respondents opined that Microsoft was trolling these articles and showering their own critizism or praise depending on the tone of the article. I’ll admit that the sheer volume of ditto-head responses like “I stopped reading…” left me to wonder the same thing and ask “if you stopped reading, why did you leave a comment in the first place?” The articles, regardless of their pro/anti-Zune slant all contained the same factual product information.

Let me put it another way. Almost every consumer makes point-of-purchase decisions based on a number of factors. Informed shoppers often look up the specs on an automobine, for example, before a test-drive is even necessary. How many seats does it have? Gas mileage? Manual or automatic transmission? Available colors? For many consumers, feature comparison is the first step in making a decision. Ironically, not all final purchase decisions are as mathematical as comparing features that seem to “make sense.” People will still buy gas-guzzling SUVs, or over-priced imports for reasons only they can understand.

For portable music, the process is similar. And now that digital music players have been out in the market for a while, feature comparison is usually the first step, although to compete, most manufacturers attempt to include the same basic features as is possible (e.g., disk space, audio fidelity, playback options). The issue with the Zune is that the published feature set has some limitations, and the drawbacks to some of the features are painfully obvious. For example, Microsoft has an accompanying online music store where you can shop for music download much like Apple’s iTunes Music Store. This “Zune Markeplace” is the only way to get music into your Zune player, much like the marriage between the iPod and iTunes. Unlike iTunes, however, Microsoft has chosen to use a point system for songs. You have to purchase points in bulk (e.g., $5 for a pack of points), and then you can buy individual songs. For 99¢ you can buy 79 points, which will buy you one song.

99¢ = 79 points = 1 song

Some people really like a point system, but the reality is that the point system hides the real dollar value purchase and lulls consumers into thinking they are paying less for a song when they really aren’t. The concept isn’t totally foreign. Think how many people turn their watches forward by five or 10 minutes so they won’t be late. The practice seems to work for some, but the truth is that they are always adjusting the time back in their heads—they always know that their watch is fast. For five or 10 minutes, the backwards math is pretty simple. However, trying to calculate 79 points of 99¢ each time you want to buy music is a little more complicated, especially when you are buying several songs or albums at once.

So, regardless of whether or not you’ve actually “played with a Zune” in hand or taken it apart, piece by piece, comparing between digital music players specifications is perfectly ligitimate, and something that journalists write about so consumers can get an idea on what is coming to market.

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