I'm just sitting back and enjoying the Zune backlash.
Happy happy joy joy, the zune is a big piece of sh*t and it's failure
sure will mean a lot to the world.
I hope it succeeds just enough in rattling the iPod, but I doubt it
would, because it has NO major features that challenge the iPod.
Well... it had wifi... but since you can't really do anything worth
while with the wifi... since it's completely crippled I don't think it
can even be considered as a new improvement over the ipod.
Even before it hit the market people were expecting a gigantic flop,
akin to the movie Waterworld or Snakes on a plane.
Here's the thing.
The zune IS an impressive piece of hardware.
1) the screen is well sized, and the aspect ratio good
2) the scroll wheel interface being a little smaller than the apple
can be spun easier, especially with one hand.
3) it even has built in wifi
4) it can play a wide range of video, photo and audio formats.
But that's where it ends.
Microsoft took an awesome piece of hardware and let the lawyers,
bueracrats and suits finish designing it. And what they did was
cripple the ever living crap out of it.
Outside looks like an ipod, but under the hood it's got a 50
horsepower 4 cyclinder with a speed governer on it, because Microsoft
didn't want you to break the law and go over 65mph!
The thing is though, I live in Michigan, and the speed limit here is
70mph. Plus... what happens when you need to pass someone!?
Best of all is the fact that microsoft is paying universal a tax of $1
per device because they assumed media stollen! To continue with the
car metaphore is akin to microsoft paying Budweiser a fee for every
car sold because they anticipate their cars are going to be used for
rum running which is going to cut into Budweiser's beer sales.
What!? What are you talking about mike? That made no sense!
Precisely!
In order for that metaphor to make sense we'd have to becoming out of
an era of prohibition and Budweiser would have to have 40% of the
market for all alchohol.
Because that's what's happening. We're coming out of an era of
prohibition on digitial media.
An era of black market rum running peer to peer networks.
And the major powers that be like universal want a tax on every still
and every device capable of transporting digital prohibitions.
It's freaking crazy out there people!
it's the wild west.
B.S. is flying left and right.
If you want to make sense out of it go watch the excellent tv series
Deadwood. It's the only metaphor that makes any sense.
It's a corrupt, messed up, f'd up frontier, and this videoblogging
group is just a frontier town, trying to survive an onslaught of
tyrannical railroad boses, telegraph boses, a monopoly on the press,
and worst of all a bunch of either clueless or currupt politicians.
that's what I'm trying to say.
LOL
I used two metaphors... so what.
I'm just having fun.
But they're both still the single most perfect metaphor for what
microsoft has done.
:)
The worst thing of all is microsoft included wifi, a MAJOR cost, and
funcitonality and did what with it? You can share a few songe IF
there's another zune user, further crippled by three listens or three
days? Ha! Why doesn't the wifi sync the device to the computer!?
Why can't you buy songs or sync with the microsoft music store
anywhere on the net? Why can't you get your podcasts and videoblogs
aggregated directly through the net.
So yeah... the zune is a perfect example of design by commitee... it
wasn't designed by users for users... it was designed by beuracts,
lawyers and suits for beuracrats lawyers and suits. I think it the
most interesting thing in the world one of it's primary colors in
brown. It absolutely positively is the perfect color for the zune.
It'll be interesting to see how many people by this iPod knockoff and
discover it is NOT what they though.
Oh! And btw, it won't work with linux, or mac, or for that matter
windows 2000, NT, 98, 95 or even Vista (yet). It only works with
windows XP.
Now that's the shiznick.
Peace out,
I'm just LOOVING this.
The zune's failure will be an affirmation of all things I hold dear.
That product design cannot be done by commitee
that innovation does not come from the board room
that products serve the PEOPLE that use them or else they will suck
All that, and I didn't even have to say the word DRM once!
Ha!
that's because it's not just about DRM... DRM is just a symbol of a
fundamentally backward way of designing products.
the future of media is not in the board rooms, it's in the clubs, the
art galleries, and on the personal computers, cameras, the hearts, and
minds of every kid from the age of 8 to 35.
The further you get away from that the more your screwed.
Of course you should know better than to trust anyone over 35 already.
Ramble, ramble, ramble.
It's been fun rambling, thanks for the video Lisa, I'd already seen
it, but it was fun to watch again.
I especially like how it's illegally put on
