Map Of Zunes

If you're not a fan of Common or hip-hop, but still want in on the album-under-a-buck deal, check this out. In addition to the Common record, you can also get the new Maroon 5 remix album: Call and Response, as well as the new record from L.A. rockers The 88 - called Not Only, But Also.

Ok, enjoy the music, everypeoples!

This week's awesome Zune news continues with this sweet offer from Best Buy, check it:

If you're in Canada (high-five, Phil!), head over to BestBuy.ca: if you buy a Zune 16, you get a Zune 4. For free. Details here.

Happy shopping!

Since the launch of the new Zune Pass, I've gotten a few questions from folks. For a quick how-to, be sure to check out the screenshot tutorial over at Inside the Circle. And Harv from 'rama did a great job in summarizing these - I ran his list by the product team and here's what I got:

1. What’s the catch here?
No catch. You get everything you always got with your Zune Pass (i.e. unlimited access to Marketplace subscription tracks, for as long as you maintain your subscription), plus your choice of 10 tracks to keep every month.

2. If I don’t download my ten tracks this month, can I download twenty next month? In other words, do the ten free downloads carry over from month to month?
No, there is no rollover of the ten downloads from one month to the next. Download your selected ten tracks each month; next month you’ll be able to download ten more.

3. Is the ‘free downloads’ offer retroactive from when I started my Zune Pass?
No, it starts now. Each month from this month forward, you get ten free downloads. And if you are a current subscriber, you get all your 10 tracks immediately regardless of your renewal date. Cool!

4. How do I download the ten free tracks?
Right-click on the track you want, and select ‘buy’ or ‘add to cart’. If you have a Zune Pass, each month you will have a ten-item credit in your account to use for this.

5. Are the free tracks in WMA or in MP3 format?
That depends on the song. About 90% of Marketplace tracks will soon be available in DRM-free MP3 format. So chances are you’ll be getting a drm-free mp3

6. Can I burn the downloaded tracks to CD?
Yes! You can burn them, just like you can with any other purchased content. The downloaded track works just like one that you purchased from Zune marketplace: you can burn it, sync it to your Zune, or more

7. I sync my Zune Pass tracks to several players and PCs. How many free downloads do I get?
You get ten free downloads per account. Having several Zune players and PCs tied to that account doesn’t affect the number of downloads that you get.

8. How much does a Zune Pass cost?
No change here: it’s still $14.99 per month. For that you get access to all Zune Marketplace subscription tracks, and your ten free keep-it-forever download tracks

9. How do I get a Zune Pass? Can I get a free trial of it?
You can sign up for a Zune Pass here. You can also get a 14-day free trial.

10. When does my 1-month start? On the first, or the day I first signed up with my zunepass?
On the first day of signing up for your Zunepass

Ok - happy downloading!

<Edited 11/21 - changed 90% info - thanks Paul!>

I snapped some photos of the Gears of War Zune - check it. First the front:

then the back, both on the device and the box:

Some cool news from the Zune community: our friends at 'Rama celebrated a second birthday. Please Join me in congratulating them!

Speaking of second birthdays, this site just had a birthday, on July 21! That's when we first announced Zune: July 21, 2006. Here's the first post I wrote announcing it. Ah, the memories. Thanks to everybody out there in the community!

Not many people know that the Zune 2.1 software release was a complete re-write of the software. We wiped the slate clean and started over. So, it wasn’t as simple as porting features over, we literally had to re-write the application from the ground up. Features like autoplaylists are no simple task to implement, and while we wanted them in the first 2.1 release, it just wasn’t possible. Now we have them, so it’s moot point, but I wanted to enlighten you as to why they weren’t included until now.

It was almost serendipitous that the “July Zune News” email was sent out earlier this week, and guess what the tip and trick was? You guessed it, how to create autoplaylists. (See this link for explicit instructions on how to create and sync autoplaylists) I thought, “awesome segue for my next blog post, sweeeet…”

Enough babbling, dude, show me some autoplaylists…

I have a few autoplaylists that I listen to religiously, I think you’ll find them useful as well. I won’t go in depth on basic setup (see link), but I will give you a few ideas on some parameters to start with. Here goes…

“Auto faves”

This is the quintessential autoplaylist. All of the songs you have rated as a heart will be added, and as you mark new songs with a heart rating, they are added to the list. I play this one more than any other playlist I have. This one is super simple to make; fire up the autoplaylist editor and select the Rating drop down, and then choose the heart (like) rating. Set the limit to no limit, and you’re done. (ps- a different spin on this one is to create a separate autoplaylist of songs you haven’t rated yet. I have found more than a few gems I had forgotten about using this method)

“100 Songs I have never heard”

This one is easy to setup, and is blast to listen to. Leave all music filters set to “all”, with the exception of “song plays”. In the song plays drop-down menu, choose “never played.” Set the limit to 100 songs, and let it arrange them randomly. The software will automatically scan your collection for songs you have never played and generate a random list. Then, each time you play one of the songs from the playlist, it is removed, and another song you haven’t played is added in its place. I was amazed that I hadn’t listened to Master P since Zune 2.1 came out, but Percy and I are back on good terms now…

“Songs added in the last 7 days”

Since I have the Zune pass, I am a fiend for new music Tuesdays! I download most of the new albums that come out on Tuesday, jam them over the week, and then keep the albums I really like. Rinse and repeat. To accomplish this, I fire up autoplaylists and select the Recently added drop down and choose “in the last (days):” and enter in the number 7 (you can obviously tweak # of days as you see fit). Then choose to arrange the songs by date added. I choose no limit to the songs as a personal preference, but you can choose to limit it if you like. Voila, now you have a running autoplaylist that will continually refresh itself with the new tunes you acquire.

“50 most played songs”

When I made this one, I realized that I listen to Radiohead way too much (is that even possible?). Start by setting your song plays to More Than 5. Then choose to arrange the songs by most played. Set the limit to 50 songs and you’re done. As you play songs more and more, they will be added to the list, as you stop listening to others as much, they will drop off of the list. Good way to find your uber-favorites.

How about some tricks?

Ever want to listen to a list of all of the Daft Punk, Radiohead, and Gorillaz tracks in your collection? I know I do. You can add multiple artists to the same autoplaylist by using a semi-colon. So, in the Album Artist field of the autoplaylist editor, choose your artist, then put a semi-colon after it, then type in another artist, and repeat. My album artist field in the editor looks like this (without quotes) “Radiohead; Daft Punk; Gorillaz”. Now you can add any artists you like together. I even have one with OutKast and Goodie Mob when I am in a southern hip hop mood. (Note: you can also do this with multiple genres. Like Hip Hop and Electronica? Try it out.)

If you’re like me, you have multiple genres listed for the same kind of music. Electronic, Electronica, Electronic/Dance, Electronica & Dance, etc. Wow! How about Hip Hop, Hip-Hop, Hip Hop/Rap, Hip-Hop/R&B, etc. Yikes! Thank god (or our developers) for including a wildcard matching algorithm. In the genre field of the autoplaylist editor, just type in “electro” (no quotes), and the editor will pull every genre that starts with “electro”. For the hip hop dilemma, type in “hip” and it will pull all of the hip hop variant genres in your collection. You can do this with any genre. This is one of my fave features of autoplaylists hands down.

Alright, I have talked long enough. What say you loyal readers? Do you have a favorite autoplaylist that you can’t live without? Have another trick that you use to make the editor more powerful? Post a comment and share your faves with the other readers.

Experiment, have fun, and be excellent to each other…

Not many people know that the Zune 2.1 software release was a complete re-write of the software. We wiped the slate clean and started over. So, it wasn’t as simple as porting features over, we literally had to re-write the application from the ground up. Features like autoplaylists are no simple task to implement, and while we wanted them in the first 2.1 release, it just wasn’t possible. Now we have them, so it’s moot point, but I wanted to enlighten you as to why they weren’t included until now.

It was almost serendipitous that the “July Zune News” email was sent out earlier this week, and guess what the tip and trick was? You guessed it, how to create autoplaylists. (See this link for explicit instructions on how to create and sync autoplaylists) I thought, “awesome segue for my next blog post, sweeeet…”

Enough babbling, dude, show me some autoplaylists…

I have a few autoplaylists that I listen to religiously, I think you’ll find them useful as well. I won’t go in depth on basic setup (see link), but I will give you a few ideas on some parameters to start with. Here goes…

“Auto faves”

This is the quintessential autoplaylist. All of the songs you have rated as a heart will be added, and as you mark new songs with a heart rating, they are added to the list. I play this one more than any other playlist I have. This one is super simple to make; fire up the autoplaylist editor and select the Rating drop down, and then choose the heart (like) rating. Set the limit to no limit, and you’re done. (ps- a different spin on this one is to create a separate autoplaylist of songs you haven’t rated yet. I have found more than a few gems I had forgotten about using this method)

“100 Songs I have never heard”

This one is easy to setup, and is blast to listen to. Leave all music filters set to “all”, with the exception of “song plays”. In the song plays drop-down menu, choose “never played.” Set the limit to 100 songs, and let it arrange them randomly. The software will automatically scan your collection for songs you have never played and generate a random list. Then, each time you play one of the songs from the playlist, it is removed, and another song you haven’t played is added in its place. I was amazed that I hadn’t listened to Master P since Zune 2.1 came out, but Percy and I are back on good terms now…

“Songs added in the last 7 days”

Since I have the Zune pass, I am a fiend for new music Tuesdays! I download most of the new albums that come out on Tuesday, jam them over the week, and then keep the albums I really like. Rinse and repeat. To accomplish this, I fire up autoplaylists and select the Recently added drop down and choose “in the last (days):” and enter in the number 7 (you can obviously tweak # of days as you see fit). Then choose to arrange the songs by date added. I choose no limit to the songs as a personal preference, but you can choose to limit it if you like. Voila, now you have a running autoplaylist that will continually refresh itself with the new tunes you acquire.

“50 most played songs”

When I made this one, I realized that I listen to Radiohead way too much (is that even possible?). Start by setting your song plays to More Than 5. Then choose to arrange the songs by most played. Set the limit to 50 songs and you’re done. As you play songs more and more, they will be added to the list, as you stop listening to others as much, they will drop off of the list. Good way to find your uber-favorites.

How about some tricks?

Ever want to listen to a list of all of the Daft Punk, Radiohead, and Gorillaz tracks in your collection? I know I do. You can add multiple artists to the same autoplaylist by using a semi-colon. So, in the Album Artist field of the autoplaylist editor, choose your artist, then put a semi-colon after it, then type in another artist, and repeat. My album artist field in the editor looks like this (without quotes) “Radiohead; Daft Punk; Gorillaz”. Now you can add any artists you like together. I even have one with OutKast and Goodie Mob when I am in a southern hip hop mood. (Note: you can also do this with multiple genres. Like Hip Hop and Electronica? Try it out.)

If you’re like me, you have multiple genres listed for the same kind of music. Electronic, Electronica, Electronic/Dance, Electronica & Dance, etc. Wow! How about Hip Hop, Hip-Hop, Hip Hop/Rap, Hip-Hop/R&B, etc. Yikes! Thank god (or our developers) for including a wildcard matching algorithm. In the genre field of the autoplaylist editor, just type in “electro” (no quotes), and the editor will pull every genre that starts with “electro”. For the hip hop dilemma, type in “hip” and it will pull all of the hip hop variant genres in your collection. You can do this with any genre. This is one of my fave features of autoplaylists hands down.

Alright, I have talked long enough. What say you loyal readers? Do you have a favorite autoplaylist that you can’t live without? Have another trick that you use to make the editor more powerful? Post a comment and share your faves with the other readers.

Experiment, have fun, and be excellent to each other…