[Jason Dunn]

There's an update coming to Zune, but it's not what some of us were hoping for. I'm at the Microsoft MVP Summit right now and was in a meeting with Jessica Zahn where she shared the information about this update. And unlike most of what's being discussed here, this topic wasn't under NDA so I can share the information with you.

Zune.net and Zune Marketplace will be down tonight, starting at 9pm Pacific Time, for several hours to facilitate this update. There's no device update, nor any desktop software update. So what does the change entail? First, they're moving to a new datacenter, from Seattle to another part of Washington. Everything Zune is getting moved over to the new datacenter, and while users might not notice a difference right away, the new datacenter has room to grow as Zune grows. Nothing too exciting there.

Figure 1: The podcasts page on Zune.net.

There are two features coming in this update that aren't related to the data centre. The first is that audio and video podcasts are now available for subscribing and streaming (audio only) to on Zune.net (shown above), using Silverlight. There are 12,000 podcasts available, making Zune.net one of the largest audio podcast libraries online. The bad news, and you knew this was coming, is that this is a US only feature - the streaming audio will not function if you're outside the US.

I doubt I'll use this feature personally, but I'm frustrated to see the Zune team going down this well-worn IP blocking path yet again. It's troublesome that once again they're being US-centric with new features. The reason? The video podcasts don't stream (they're waiting for enhanced codec support in Silverlight) so they link to the Zune desktop software client for those. Because no one outside the US has the Marketplace showing by default (you have to change your Windows location to see it), this is a broken experience, so they disabled this for anyone outisde the US. Why didn't they use a different set of code or linking method for audio and video podcasts, enabling users anywhere in the world to stream audio podcasts? No clue. Maybe next version.

Figure 2: The individual podcast view page on Zune.net.

The Music Trivia game, initially discussed last year, is also included in this update. You can create music quizzes, linking to the music you're talking about. Looks like it might be fun - I'm not aware of music-related quizzes with previews on any other social networking site out there now. The last feature added to Zune .net is RSS in the forums. You can subscribe at the forum level, getting RSS updates when there are new threads. At the thread level, you use the email subscription feature to keep updated on threads.

And that's it for the update - nothing earth shattering, but a step forward for people using Zune.net.

[Jason Dunn]

There's an update coming to Zune, but it's not what some of us were hoping for. I'm at the Microsoft MVP Summit right now and was in a meeting with Jessica Zahn where she shared the information about this update. And unlike most of what's being discussed here, this topic wasn't under NDA so I can share the information with you.

Zune.net and Zune Marketplace will be down tonight, starting at 9pm Pacific Time, for several hours to facilitate this update. There's no device update, nor any desktop software update. So what does the change entail? First, they're moving to a new datacenter, from Seattle to another part of Washington. Everything Zune is getting moved over to the new datacenter, and while users might not notice a difference right away, the new datacenter has room to grow as Zune grows. Nothing too exciting there.

Figure 1: The podcasts page on Zune.net.

There are two features coming in this update that aren't related to the data centre. The first is that audio and video podcasts are now available for subscribing and streaming (audio only) to on Zune.net (shown above), using Silverlight. There are 12,000 podcasts available, making Zune.net one of the largest audio podcast libraries online. The bad news, and you knew this was coming, is that this is a US only feature - the streaming audio will not function if you're outside the US.

I doubt I'll use this feature personally, but I'm frustrated to see the Zune team going down this well-worn IP blocking path yet again. It's troublesome that once again they're being US-centric with new features. The reason? The video podcasts don't stream (they're waiting for enhanced codec support in Silverlight) so they link to the Zune desktop software client for those. Because no one outside the US has the Marketplace showing by default (you have to change your Windows location to see it), this is a broken experience, so they disabled this for anyone outisde the US. Why didn't they use a different set of code or linking method for audio and video podcasts, enabling users anywhere in the world to stream audio podcasts? No clue. Maybe next version.

Figure 2: The individual podcast view page on Zune.net.

The Music Trivia game, initially discussed last year, is also included in this update. You can create music quizzes, linking to the music you're talking about. Looks like it might be fun - I'm not aware of music-related quizzes with previews on any other social networking site out there now. The last feature added to Zune .net is RSS in the forums. You can subscribe at the forum level, getting RSS updates when there are new threads. At the thread level, you use the email subscription feature to keep updated on threads.

And that's it for the update - nothing earth shattering, but a step forward for people using Zune.net.

[bffhusker]

That's all great and fine, but Microsoft should concentrate on fixing the serious problems with the current Zunes (for example, usage rights problems with the Zune Pass which are being completely ignored).

[inteller]

well, sounds like that "lack of a source of income" is coming sooner for these tards than not. How can they can they continue to spend Microsoft's money with nothing substantial but back end junk like this?

[jaxim]

>The video podcasts don't stream (they're waiting for enhanced codec support in Silverlight)

Why don't they just use flash? If they are going to go with silverlight, this is probably not going to take off. If they had used flash, they might have had a shot. D.O.A.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by bffhusker

That's all great and fine, but Microsoft should concentrate on fixing the serious problems with the current Zunes (for example, usage rights problems with the Zune Pass which are being completely ignored).

Tell me more about this - I don't have a Zune Pass, so I haven't experienced this. And what other issues would you say are important to address?

[inteller]

Originally Posted by jaxim

>The video podcasts don't stream (they're waiting for enhanced codec support in Silverlight)

Why don't they just use flash? If they are going to go with silverlight, this is probably not going to take off. If they had used flash, they might have had a shot. D.O.A.

microsoft mandated. at any rate silverlight gets pushed via windows update now so soon it will be on all machines. I'm sure Windows 7 will come with it as well.

one way or another flash is doomed.

[serpico]

I've given up on this US centric stuff. It's taking forever too use any of this in Canada. People talk about all the great things that the Zune can do over the iPod but the rest of the world is still waiting. It was nice using it for awhile but I think my 120 has moved to 'long trip only use' for now. I'm tired of hearing 'soon, soon'.

[Hiid]

i don't think flash is going to be doomed, microsoft again tried to bush their point of view instead of sharing and discussing about it openly and i'm sure that's caused quite some negative sides for silver light(and Mićrosoft), for i example i don't even have silver light (i had, but i uninstalled it just because they were so ignorant about it, and i don't like it anyways)

And people are so dependent of flash i mean everywhere you go turing the day in internet i'm sure flash has shown it's side couple of times atleast. Like youtube, in 2006 it had 100 million video views per day, i mean that has to mean something.

(sry for going OT)

[Macguy59]

Speaking of Silverlight Netflix is taking a beating over the use of it for streaming.

[Espiox]

Podcast streaming is working here in the UK.