Zune Advertising

Microsoft’s Zune is supposed to be launching in the next few days. Infact, the official Zune site just launched earlier today. Although, I can’t afford to be an early adopter, I think some of the positive features such as sharing, ease of updates and being the current underdog player in the market may swing some people toward using the device. If that doesn’t work, it looks like Microsoft is counting on some of the following ads for your swing vote:

Zune: Picnic

Zune: Battle

Zune: Concert

Zune: Dog Scratch

Zune: Couple

(Note: The above links all link to YouTube. For some reason some WordPress updates I applied to the site earlier today seem to have disabled my ability to embed the YouTube media files)

Pandora

On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever. Their work resulted in the The Music Genome Project.

Today I finally had a chance to sample the efforts of their work through Pandora – a program that’s designed to help me discover new music that I’m supposed to love. The experience so far has been quite interesting. After adding Third Day and Newsboys to my radio station I got Lazy Days by Robbie Williams. Apparently there’s some ‘genetic’ connection.

Microsoft and RealNetworks – Partners in Crime

Earlier today Microsoft announced a $761 million agreement with RealNetworks paving way for a new friendship and hope to tackle Apple – at least that’s what I think will end up happening. According to the Microsoft press release, �under the music and games agreements, Microsoft is scheduled to pay Real $301 million in cash and provide services over 18 months in support of Real�s product development, distribution, and promotional activities. Microsoft will earn credits at predetermined market rates to be applied to the $301 million for subscribers delivered to Real through MSN. Additionally, Real will take steps to support MSN Search, and Real and Microsoft will jointly promote use of Windows Media technologies with Rhapsody to Go.�

Defining Moment (Lyrics)

Defining Moment by Newsong

There comes a time in every heart
A time of real decision
When we reach the point of choosing how we will live our lives
All our hopes, all our dreams will rise up from that moment
The moment we surrender and choose to follow Christ
He’s been waiting all our lives to hear us say
I am yours, Lord, take my hand and lead the way

Chorus:

When you believe he’s all you need
That will be your defining moment
As you live your life walking in his light
Trusting him completely
That will be, that will be your defining moment

All I have, all I am is resting in his promise
The promise that he’ll make me everything that I should be
I will live, I will die, for the cause he’s set before me
To take this love inside my heart for all the world to see
All of heaven celebrates when they hear someone say
I am yours, Lord, take my hand and lead the way

Bridge:

His amazing grace is such a mystery,
How in an instant it can make your life complete

Google Video Player

Ever heard of the VLC Media Player¹? You may not have, but at the very least you’ve probably heard about Google – the provider of all things free and beneficial? John Batelle talks about Google’s upcoming VLC Media Player that will integrate Google Payments alongwith the Google Video Search that’s been accessible for the past few months, but not promoted on their home page. Like Froogle, the Google Video Player is providing a way for organizations or individuals to expose their product(s) free of charge to the Google sphere of influence – advertisers, end-users and even other competitors by way of their ever growing list of APIs. So if John’s article holds true, later today you and me will probably be streaming video using the Google Video Player.

¹VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.

(Source: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ )

Microsoft enters the Music Arena

Competition is such a blessing in disguise – yet news regarding Microsoft’s entry into the music store world makes you wonder if we should welcome the new MSN Music Store? Either way, in my opinion, I think the store is a step in the right direction that hopefully will reflect on all new MSN related sites. Some of the nice features on the site include:

- User Interface
MSN appears to have stolen a page from the Google school of design. The entire layouf of the Music store has plenty of white space and is ad-free.

- Organization
I had no trouble identifying songs by genre and search results were grouped by Artist, Album, Song or Radio station.

- Integration with Passport
For me personally, the integration with Passport is probably one of the best selling features. By having a Passport enabled account, I can not only sign in to a plethora of MSN sites but also to other sites such as Monster and eBay. Furthermore, since I have previously used my Passport account, I was able to easily maintain the same profile information on the music store.

- Search
It appears that the store is using some of the new MSN Search technology. I did not see an Advanced Search, but my search query, resulted in a list of possible matches grouped by Artist, Album, Song or Radio Station.

Windows Media 10

The Register is reporting a possible launch of the next version of Windows Media player later this week.

Media Player battles to begin?

Last Tuesday

Last Tuesday is set to release Distractions and Convictions on July 2nd. I’ve had the pleasure of listening to their earlier albums and knowing Carl Emmons while at Messiah. Now, I’ll finally have a chance to own their new album when it’s released.

Two of the songs from the new album are now available for your listening pleasure at Last Tuesday