Microsoft introduced Zune today. But you wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really know it. The marketing has been strangely quiet. So after hearing that it has been officially introduced, I go to Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s web site to learn more about this gadget. Hmm. Nothing on the front page. Well maybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s under the mobile section…no. Not there. By this point the marketing-knowledgeable part of me is thinking this really isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t good marketing. Granted Microsoft has been burned in the past for over-hyping some of its technologies that later underperformed to the market\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s expectations (Origami being the most recent example). But this is so low key as to practically not exist. The fact that I had to use Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s search form to find it does not bode well for the product. Of course people will probably blog about it and that will increase market awareness…but no front page entry? It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look good. It looks like Microsoft is trying to quickly shove the dead body under the carpet and hope no one notices. And you know what? No one will. (It looks like they have some dynamic feed on the first page now and it has a short blurb about the Zune intro…but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like 1% of the front page and I sure the heck didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t notice it until just now). And it looks like the press\/PR lines are going to tout it as well. So maybe it won’t die in silence…<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve purposely left out a direct link so you all can experience the underwhelming marketing experience of what is Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Zune. Very zen-like I suppose. Ah…I crack myself up sometimes.<\/p>\n
Some other notes: The design of the identity – interesting concept, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sold on its execution – it just gets too confusing in my opinion, especially in black (it looks like a mess of lines).<\/p>\n
Product colors: Normally I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not a fan of brown. Probably something to do with my dislike of the 70\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. Oh, brown can be done tastefully. And here I think it works. Brown will be Zune\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s version of the pink iPod mini. Otherwise I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not terribly enthusiastic over the product design. I think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have to play with it to make up my mind. And the bar is pretty high because of my iPod experience.<\/p>\n
Packaging: I think the packaging colors is the most exciting thing about Zune that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen. I mean mixing pink with brown! Get out of here! Those MS rebels! Okay not really. The colors are definitely interesting and do jump out. But the fact that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m interested more in the colors then the product…that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like a kid being more excited by the box then the toy. Perhaps that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the angle Microsoft is looking for…<\/p>\n
Anyway, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s some of my thoughts on Zune and it’s marketing (or lack thereof).<\/p>\n
Updated to correct some bad grammar. Proof that I’m not perfect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Microsoft introduced Zune today. But you wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really know it. The marketing has been strangely quiet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemdesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemdesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemdesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemdesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemdesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemdesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemdesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemdesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemdesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}