{"id":1201,"date":"2006-11-09T13:34:59","date_gmt":"2006-11-09T18:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/how-many-microsoft-points-does-it-cost-to-kick-your-ass\/"},"modified":"2006-11-09T13:37:05","modified_gmt":"2006-11-09T18:37:05","slug":"how-many-microsoft-points-does-it-cost-to-kick-your-ass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/how-many-microsoft-points-does-it-cost-to-kick-your-ass","title":{"rendered":"How many Microsoft points does it cost to kick your ass?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft’s getting ready to launch its iPod killer, the Zune<\/a> music player, next week. Walter Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal<\/a> (pay only, so no article link for you!) reviewed the thing today. He tried to be kind, but it doesn’t look good:<\/p>\n

[T]o buy even a single 99-cent song from the Zune store, you have to purchase blocks of “points” from Microsoft, in increments of at least $5. You can’t just click and have the 99 cents deducted from a credit card, as you can with iTunes. You must first add points to your account, then buy songs with these points. So, even if you are buying only one song, you have to allow Microsoft, one of the world’s richest companies, to hold on to at least $4.01 of your money until you buy another. And the point system is deceptive. Songs are priced at 79 points, which some people might think means 79 cents. But 79 points actually cost 99 cents.<\/p>\n[. . .] The Zune’s tag line, evident immediately when you open the box, is “Welcome to the Social,” a phrase meant to stress the device’s wireless song-sharing feature, and to reach out to the Zune’s target market, young music lovers who build social relationships around favorite songs and artists.<\/p>\n

But the wireless music-sharing feature on the Zune is heavily compromised, in a way that is bound to annoy the very audience it is targeting. Each song sent to your Zune from another Zune can be played only three times and is available for playing for only three days. After that, it dies and can’t be played again unless you buy it. Even if you play the song only halfway through, or for one minute, that counts as one of your three allowed plays. In fact, in my tests, a song I sent to my assistant’s Zune expired after only two plays, one of which lasted just a few seconds. Microsoft attributed that to a bug that it said would be fixed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is reminding me an awful lot of that “Microsoft designs the iPod package”<\/a> video. . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft’s getting ready to launch its iPod killer, the Zune music player, next week. Walter Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal (pay only, so no article link for you!) reviewed the thing today. He tried to be kind, but it doesn’t look good: [T]o buy even a single 99-cent song from the Zune store, you … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “How many Microsoft points does it cost to kick your ass?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-jn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2067,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/mess","url_meta":{"origin":1201,"position":0},"title":"MesS","author":"Gil","date":"May 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"As a Mac convert, my interest in the decline\/irrelevance of Microsoft is more observational and less practical. Every so often, I look at prices for Windows laptops, just 'cause, and then think, \"There's nothing I'd need one of these machines for.\" But I'm fascinated by the sight of MS in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1053,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/alta-vista","url_meta":{"origin":1201,"position":1},"title":"Alta Vista","author":"Gil","date":"July 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Microsoft is trying to get PC designers to get some of that Apple feeling, by incorporating such exTREME! trends as the use of black! and white! 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