Latest News Update About Microsoft Portable Player: It's always a surprise when one thing is held up as a brand new innovation on the web, when a similar implementation is already public � but doesn't have a nice piece of fruit to help it along. Microsoft have already surprised me with the Zune HD as a portable media player, and the integration with Zune.net continues that path.
Rather than record the games you've been playing and achievements in Halo and other games (which is the basis of the X-Box Live login), your Zune.net profile looks at the music I've been listening to on both the Zune HD Now this is a music-based social network that I like. The reward and focus is primarily on the individual user, their musical taste, and their musical graph (you know, like a social graph but using music as the building block).
And then there are the badges, much like Foursquare, that you earn by listening to your favourite artists and albums, interacting with others in the Zune community and reviewing songs and albums in the store. It's a subtle way to not only keep you listening to your music but also to keep subtle hooks in you to stay connected.
It's a bit like Last.FM and Pandora, but with heavy integration into the portable player, the desktop software, and the online music store, it's another area that Microsoft have quietly built up expertise in (the other is in UI, specifically the Metro UI) that seems to be ignored in the bluster of the mobile world.
Still, Apple has Ping and people are more than happy to write about that music network, when there is one that works, that is right under their nose, and could rightly be considered a success.
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