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Heavily Discounted Zune Outpacing iPod Sales
firegate writes "Yahoo Tech is reporting that the Microsoft Zune, having been heavily discounted for the holiday season, 'is currently Amazon's top-selling music player, beating out the new iPod Nano and the 80GB iPod on the 'Bestsellers in Electronics' list.' An Associated Press report even indicates that the Zune's newfound popularity has left it in short supply, sold out in many locations. Is this a sign that a true competitor, from Microsoft no less, has finally broken into the Apple-dominated MP3 player market? And will this spell more success for Windows-media based music subscription services like Napster?"
story is complete bull. go check amazon, as of today, 1:30 EST, apple mp3 players are at places 1,2,4,5,6,7,8. the zune is number 9. (apple continues at places 11, 12, 13, 18 ...)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/172630/ref=pd_ts_e_nav
I suppose it depends on when you look at the numbers as Amazon gives discrete periods of time when items are selling vs. others. For instance, looking at it now, the Zune is #8, well behind 7 flavors of iPods...
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As of MY press time, Zune 80 is #9. iPods occupy spots 1,2, and 4-8. #3 is a Sansa of some variety, #9 is a Zune, and #10 is another Sansa. 11-14 are different nano varieties, and all the way at #15 is a Zune spot.
Feel free to come up with your own crackpot theory as to why this is. My favorite is the Zune isn't popular unless it's dirt cheap.
At the moment, Apple has 7 od the top 8 spots on Amazon's MP3 bestseller list, including their 4 gig Nano at #1. The 2nd-gen 80-gig Zune comes in an #9. However, you'll note that the Yahoo article's a week and half old.
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
iTunes/iPods have done this for a long long time. You can even subscribe to video podcasts if you have an ipod capable of playing it.
"Rate of Growth" is one of the most commonly "spun" statistics.
For example: If I sell 1 widget last month, and then I sell 10 widgets this month I can make the claim that I have a 1000% month-over-month growth rate. Not only that, I have a "faster rate of growth" than every other major widget manufacturer/retailer.
Obviously, rate of growth is clearly only a meaningful statistic when presented alongside comparative volumes.
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...Microsoft's online music store isn't as comprehensive as iTunes.
Not only that, but putting the music on the zune isn't as easy a task as setting up iTunes. I have a first-gen zune (brown, no less) and it took me over an hour to get the software installed and get ready to use the zune. Also, I got the zune second-hand and once I set up my software, I wasn't able to play any of the music that was left on it. It kept saying that I didn't have permission. When I asked the guy who I got it from about that, he said that they were mp3'd using the zune's software, so he didn't know why that was the case... they shouldn't have been DRM'd.
I don't know if the new zunes fixed that or if the new zunes have a better interface on the device itself (I do know they haven't really gotten the desktop application any simpler. it's still a pain to use). The old zune is a pain in the arse to navigate and the only thing I really feel it has going for it is the larger screen, although I haven't put any video on it, yet.
so, has anyone used one of the new zunes, yet? has MS improved the interface? The physical box definitely is much nicer looking than the original model and, from a purely superficial standpoint looks like it can compete with the ipods... at least with the general consumer population.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
Your friends must be illiterate as iTunes asks if you want to resync your library with the one of the new computer. You can tell it not to and it will be in manual song management mode. From there you can drop all of the songs you want onto the iPod. It's not rocket surgery.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
IANAL, but I am pretty sure that US antitrust law forbids monopolies from selling at a loss to gain market share/hurt competitors; MS is certainly not a monopoly in the music player business.
Are there still people that don't know about QTFairUse? All informed people by now buy only "Plus" songs or stick to CDs. I've got a co-worker that got heavily burned by DRM, and I explained him what to do in order to avoid lock in. The Zune plays AAC, by the way. Just not protected AAC.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Try refining your results a bit, perhaps looking at "MP3 Players" (which iPods do indeed dominate), but then selecting the subsection "Hard-Drive Based". Here, Zune takes spots 1,2, and 4 (Brown, Black and White, respectively), iPod gets space 3, and the Zen is 5th.
Obviously this is some sort of evil plot by Microsoft.
Also you might try looking lower in the "Portable Digital Media Player" bestseller list: iPods are there, just very low on the list.
You'll get banned from Slashdot for doing things like that, you know. This site is for prejudice and uninformed drivel only; Uncovering the real scam is bad form.
It amused me particularly because I asked someone only today why JVC sell over 200 different current models of camcorders in the UK, and was told that it was because of the scam shops do which says 'if you can find one of these cheaper anywhere else we'll refund the difference...' - apparently each major reseller gets one model which only they sell, even though it's practically identical to all the other models which are exclusive to each of the other major retailers. This scam of Microsoft's seems to me to be a sort of variant of the same gag.
Caveat emptor.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
"Also you might try looking lower in the "Portable Digital Media Player" bestseller list: iPods are there, just very low on the list."
This was debunked months ago...There are no current generation iPods on the list. For some reason Amazon is not counting current generation iPods as a portable media player.