Audio book files as Podcasts

StewedMonkeyBrains asks:

...has anyone got an easy way to get your MP3s to register as podcasts in the desktop software? Upon initial install one of my books was selected as a podcast, but 30 others weren't... I've tried dozens of things to get another book to register as a podcast with no joy.

I pinged Josh on the product team about this, and he replied...

...anything of genre=podcast will get added to the podcast section. If you want to use the podcast capabilities for audio books, then you should be sure to also set the album title = book title on each section/chapter so that all the sections/chapters get coalated under the same “series”.

Let me know how this works; I'll be trying it out myself tonight!

What I learned this year shipping Zune 2

I owe you guys some more posts, but I'll start with my lessons learned from Year 2 of Zune:

• Shipping is good.  Shipping is learning. 
• We really can execute on an innovative end to end experience.
• The Zune software is amazingly nice.  It's also taught me that Burl Ives did some of the tracks on AC/DC's back in black album.  See here if this is a mystery to you.
• The team can really rock n roll and get updates out rapidly.
• It takes a whole lot of usability testing to get a Zune pad juuuuuust riiiiiiight.
• Interaction designers look really funny with false long fingernails on so they can test the Zune Pad.
• Ditto me re the long fingernails.
• You can eat too much Yummi Teriyaki. 
• Strategy is nice, but it's possible to overdo it.  But it's ok as long as it doesn't get in the way of executing.  Sort of like Yummi Teriyaki, come to think of it...
• Zune cards are much cooler than I would have thought.
• Accessories can be fun.
• Shipping the new features and clients to our best/early adopter customers through their v1 devices was the right thing to do.
• Three managers in a year?  No problem.
• The cake is a lie.  There is no cake.

Congrats to the whole team.  And thanks to everyone in the community that's enjoying the new features and/or products!

Zune Card - as promised!

I've added my zune card to the template for this blog. Enjoy! Worshop before the awesome outdatedness of my music collection!

Media I'm Consuming

I will put a Zunetag on this site when they go external, so you'll be able to see what I'm listening to.  But for now, here's my painfully created manual list:

• Podcasts:  Lots of NPR, Lots of Network News TV, TWiT, Windows Weekly,
• Lots of Queen.  Every now and then I rediscover them, and go on a 24 hour jag.
• Lots of WWII era stuff.  Ken Burns made me do it.
• Franz Ferdinand on a recommendation.  Trying it out.
• John Mellencamp.  I'm from Bloomington, Indiana, ok?
• Kevin Gilbert
• The Killers.  Trying them out on a recommdnation
• The Rolling stones.  "What the heck, let's download their entire catalog and try them out".
• TV:  A new season!  Heroes, My Name is Earl, 30 Rock, Survivorman.  Ken Burns' The War.

There can be no doubt.  I'm not as cool as the guys in Marketing.

Dude, I'm there

Fake Steve Jobs on the Microsoft Campus.  I'm so totally going to be there.

More on subscriptions

Some folks have asked me about what the future of subscriptions might be (as opposed to simply listing the challenges).  This is a great point. 

There are several situations where subscription music can work well.

• First, music subscription can support another business.  My comments have referred to standalone music subscriptions. Music subscriptions are a huge opportunity for Zune and love using Zune Pass.  What's more, Zune Pass works economically for us because it's a differentiator that makes our devices more attractive.  Other examples would include Amazon or Walmart using it to drive shopping traffic.
• Second, the end to end issues can get better.  Zune is solving this with an integrated/end to end device to client to service offering.  This means the experience can be better, plus is means that consumers get a simple message - "Get Zune" - instead of the complex combination of service from vendor A, device from vendor B, and client from vendor C. 

Fundamentally, I strongly believe there are millions of music lovers who want the value that a well executed subscription service provides - and will prefer to buy devices that offer the option.

"File Sharing" trial.

IANAL, but interesting thread about the file sharing/piracy trial verdict at digital media thoughts.  Bottom line; woman shares 1700 songs online, gets sued for sharing 24 @ $9250 = $222,000! 

IMO the key quote:

Either file sharing is legal or this lady was guilty.

I tend to agree.  Surprising that the EFF and other libertarianarchists put this woman up as a defendant (assuming they did); it certainly drives to a clear precedent on what the law is.  Now if you really want to change things, you'll need to go change the law.

http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=71059

Thoughts on the G3 iPod Nano

in my earlier post, I said I hadn't tried out the iPod Nano yet.  Well now I have, and have some thoughts.  As usual, I'm going to say this is my opinion and you should take it as such.  I also am going to not get into any big flame wars on this - if you disagree, please post respectfully.

I think they made a strange tradeoff.  I think that for most people, the Nano has always been about music.  If you were one of the (few) users who really cared about video, you obviously went elsewhere.  Now, they've added video to the device.  This is a nice adder, but IMHO not all that compelling given the (still) small screen size.  But fine, it's got video.

The tradeoff is in designing the device around this scenario.  The "fatty" formfactor feels like a worse music device than the G2 iPod Nano in several ways:

• the scrollwheel is really small.  to fit it into the little space beneath the screen, it shrank.  this makes is quite a bit easier to miss the active surface while "wheeling".
• It is less of a one-handed device.  I could hold the tallboy Nano and use my thumb.  this one really wants one hand holding it while the other one scrolls.  This is hard to describe, so go try one and see.

Don't get me wrong - it's a beautiful little device.   But I think (hope?) there's an opening for us.  The Zune 4 and 8 are the more music-focused formfactor, but still enable video in landscape mode by turning the device. 

Remember when apple end-of-lifed the ipod mini, there was a groundswell of folks who missed it?  It didn't matter because there was no reasonable alternative.  I'd like to think this time there is one.

Ow, I bumped my head

This is astonishingly good.  Local editing/publishing into this blog, and it even figured out to go back to blogger for the source publishing.  Really amazing.

Wow, great job to the windows live team!  And really good on em for embracing a competitive service this way...

Testing posting from Windows Live Writer

Will this really work on a blogger blog redirected from blogger.com to a custom url via ftp?  If so, I'll fall over backwards...