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. With In The New York Times Magazine: The Zune
Posted Under: Consumed
AntiPod
Are Zune buyers motivated by what the device is – or what it isn’t?
Today in Consumed: Who chooses to buy a Zune, and why? The marketing of the device has stressed its “social” features. But is that really the attraction?
Community and togetherness seem like a reasonable counterpunch to iPod’s supposed attraction as an individuality enabler that allows owners to wallow in their own tasteful personal soundtracks. But in real life, the cafe patron checking for other Zune owners is less likely to find one than to arouse mild curiosity about his eccentric product choice. Meanwhile, owning an iPod seems roughly as individualistic as a gray flannel suit.
Read the column in the August 10, 2008, issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.
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Reader Comments
You left out Zune’s biggest advantage over the Ipod. For $14.95 a month you can download all the music you want to your computer & your Zune player (or at least until it’s full & you will fill it!). Hear a song by a new band, download their whole catalog. Try that with Itunes.
Interesting article. I’m a Zune owner (on my 2nd, actually.. had one of the first-gen 30giggers now have an 80gigger). I think the social stuff on the player is pretty useless, but find the social website very useful for sending song recommendations amongst my friends.
Still, for me I think the reason I stick with Zune for music even though I use an iPhone and whatnot is because the user interface on both the player and the desktop software is very slick and intuitive for me. I find Itunes very frustrating, and somewhat hideous to boot. the Zune desktop program is really rather nice, and the portable player UI is fantastic.
Thanks for the feedback. And just to repeat my boilerplate regarding responses to NYT work:
If you want to make a point about Consumed that you think readers of The Times Magazine would be interested in, I encourage you to write a Letter to the Editor: “Letters should be addressed to Letters to the Editor, Magazine, The New York Times, 229 West 43rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10036. The e-mail address is magazine@nytimes.com. All letters should include the writer’s name, address and daytime telephone number. We are unable to acknowledge or return unpublished letters. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.”
A lot more people read the magazine than ever see this site.
Zune isn’t the issue. It’s just one player in the bigger picture: that is, that Apple has made a solid product in the iPod, but it is hardly the only thing out there as some might have you believe (iPod marketers in particular).
I love my MacBook Pro. But an iPod? Never seemed worth the additional marketing premium, but most of all I resented the closed-system technology approach Apple took with the device. Years ago while I used iRivers for their built-in FM radio, support for formats like Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, etc., iPod just iPlodded along supporting its proprietary format, it’s bewildering DRM, and it’s most annoying affinities to iTunes — which is potentially the most abhorrent point. That this day and age the concept of a file system with folders is too “unfriendly” to support in iPod firmware is still a ludicrous conclusion.
So we’re enamored with what the competition in the likes of COWON are doing. They may lack the megabudget, billboard-and-magazine-ad-strewn blitz of iPod, but that only adds to some of the appeal.
The anti-iPod movement is out there, though. You even neglected to mention to Web sites devoted to anything but iPods, e.g.:
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/
This is really late in the game, but did you come across this guy in your zune research?
http://www.iphonesavior.com/2008/07/zune-tattoo-guy.html
Yeah, he’s mentioned in the column itself.