Douche bag with combed-back hair,
iTunes a lot, Zune's retarded (Rhapsody?), Limewire free.

What will YOU choose?

$15/mo x 12mo = $180 a year.

I'm not going to be buying 180 songs from iTunes in a year, therefore for me, iTunes is cheaper.

In fact, I'd say in a given year there are only between 20 and 30 songs that I'd like to buy, and occasionally if a couple are from the same album, I'll buy the whole album. Regardless, even if I bought 10 albums from iTunes, that's still only half the cost of the Zune, and I don't have to worry about continually subscribing; they'll work forever.

What about when they kill the servers (like they have in the past) and all the music you've been renting just dies?

If I understand the Zune terms of service, it works something like this:

1. Pay $15 per month
2. Auto-renewal is mandatory
3. Download an unlimited number of songs
4. Play all of these songs on three devices (Windows computers or Zune players), so long as you're still subscribed for $15 per month
5. You can swap out one of those three devices every 30 days, so long as you're still subscribed for $15 per month
5. Each month, you can choose 10 songs that will be permanently yours, regardless of your subscription status

On the whole, this sounds like a pretty bad plan. Unless you're downloading nearly every album that's released, you can spend less money with iTunes and not worry about any DRM. Microsoft is hoping people don't think forward that extra step and realize what a waste of money the Zune Pass is.

This ad campaign will probably be more successful than the Windows corollary simply because MS's share of this market is so low. There are probably a lot of people who don't even know the Zune exists, so this will help get their attention. There are probably even more people who aren't aware that the subscription model for music exists, and this will help with that group too.

I could easily see MS doubling the Zune's share of the music player market if they keep up a persistent ad attack.

Of course, too bad for MS that they waited so late in the game to show up for this fight. The Zune is not a competitor to the iPod Touch, which is where Apple is headed. Too bad MS can't send this ad campaign back in time 5 years.

How much would it cost to fill an 8GB nano (this is what people buy mostly, the 120GB iPod Classic has been sidelined since the touch came out) with music?

8GB / 256kbps AAC * 4 minutes ~= 8MB per song, or 1000 songs.

You're probably going to buy albums which are discounted over the per-track price. Total cost, for a person that doesn't own any CDs: Max: $1290, Likely: $800, or $80/year if they'll listen to it for 10 years. That's under $7 a month.

If you're more than 12 years old, you'll own CDs anyway. Let's say you're 25, and have bought a conservative 10 CDs a year since you were 15 - that's 100 CDs or 1200 songs (or thereabout). Oh, look, you don't need to buy any music from iTunes to fill your iPod up, in fact you might need to buy the 16GB iPod...

Shall we get onto podcasts, which I have found to be an excellent legal free way to listen to new music - some of them don't even have annoying speaking in them. Or shall we talk about Microsoft's lies in the advert - $30,000 to get 120GB of music from iTunes indeed!

Zune Pass probably is great....IF you're into buying music. It always makes me wonder what kind of business model they can come up with for such a tiny market, of people who want legal music. Everyone I know is content with their illegal music :) :(

The playlists section is probably the best feature of the Zune Pass. For example: http://www.failratio.net/playlists.jpg
I'm not going to pay $330 for all those songs, but I can download it all and listen to the full song and pick out what I want.

I guess that microsoft starts a new era of Music if people adopt it. I mean, a lot of people on my country pays internet conection just to be able to download free movies, software, games and music. So, i've been long time thinking that if someone is able to pay a bill just to get acces to this kind of content, they will pay for sure for a "free bar" to get everything they want easy and fast.

I think that they are starting to set up if all goes right, the first step into a distribution system where you pay a bill and you get free acces to multimedia content. People will download music that they would not pay, will be able to get some contenet that they dont really know if they will like it just to try. Nowdays only the most known artists sells music because no ones want to waste their money at unknown people that they will never know if they like it.

Dunno, but i guess that they set up something like "Make your own radio for 15$". In future, maybe they set up something like "make your own TV". Far away of "get acces to some channels".

Maybe it's not my schema, like someone said, maybe I'm a geek. But I feel that a lot of people that likes hearing new music and listening the Radio, will enjoy a lot this kind of marketing policy.

There's one aspect of using the Zune marketplace to try any music they have which doesn't get mentinoed and it ties back in to the 'Artists get hosed by labels' pirating justification even though I think that's a bs excuse to pirate music for free maybe some people genuinely believe it. Being able to try music makes it possible to discover new, different, or indie music that might not be available otherwise or which is hard to find. Even though it's from 'evil M$' it might actually be a stepping stone to the direct from artist ideal that the above reason promotes. That is dependent upon what music is available of course, maybe someone who has a subscription can say whether artist-produced or indie stuff is available.

The Zune marketplace model really isn't bad unless you already have a huge music collection but then iTunes or Amazon or whatever wouldn't be any better for those. It would take 166 years of subscription to equal $30,000. Of course neither can compete with free pirated music.

FYI you can strip the DRM from Zune subscription music if you want to be naughty.

ummm you guys are all crazy. aac vs mp3 vs who gives a rats? yah i suppose it does give slighty better quality, but since 99% of people use the same crap headphones (myself included) that ship with the device, it really is a moot point. as for the zune pass, yes it is a different model vs itunes, but dont forget you guys are all geeks. they are going after the teens and other people who dl thousands of songs just to have them sitting on their mp3 player. we all know people who do that, they dont know what they have and have never listened to 99% of it, but it is there and it makes them happy. the model is a good one, yes you get 10 songs for 15$. great, that is a little pricier than itunes, so what? my mp3 player was 5$ cheaper at futureshop, i still bought it at the source. that isnt the be all and end all. how about the fact that zune marketplace is PRETTIER. itunes is mess, now i know some of you boys is going to be hating, but really come on, it is. on macs, i hear it is not too bad, but on the windows side? geez! pretty is what counts. ms took a page out of apples book and made a very attractive mp3 store, and i have had numerous people ask what program i am using and where they can dl it, simply because it looks pretty and has that mixview thing. now for me as a geek, it isnt such a big deal, but your average joe isnt a geek. it is to him/her. in summary, quit hating, at least they are trying, there is no question that ipod owns the market, kudos to ms for trying something different, and hopefully it pans out for them.

You know, the Zune gets a bad rap an' all, but it's not that bad of a device or value/per GB. The Zune Pass, wherein you get to KEEP 10 songs a month, is pretty damn nice, too.

My only computer is a Macbook, though, so : meh.

I would probably subscribe if Apple offered a similar service, but I'm not going to buy a Zune to get it.

You should mention in the article that you can purchas songs for the Zune on a per-track basis, just like with iTunes. So you're not any worse off. They just have the option of subscription-based process, which you can't get with iTunes.

The add makes no mention that once you stop paying your 15$/month, all your hundreds of albums that you downloaded on your Zune instantly stop playing. Yeah, great value right there. At least, with iTunes, if you're dumb enough to buy 30 000$ worth of songs to fill your iPod, they're yours to keep playing for ever and ever on ANY device that plays AAC files nut just on your PC and Zune.

The Zune ecosystem is more like the old iPod/iTunes : full of restrictions. Not sure what MS is trying to go for here.. Desperate times call for desperate adds ?!

Adi

They both suck, use Amazon. DRM free MP3s.

not available in Norway, of course! Only Canada and USA.