Zune inching towards Podcast Support who are they Kidding!

By Geek News Central | January 18, 2007

I was excited when someone sent me a e-mail today telling me Zune now has internal Podcast support but was disappointed when I looked at the sites that the Zune team are linking to. The “Download to Zune” icons are simply links to the file that requires manual downloads.

It is apparent that the Zune team is becoming sensitive to the fact that their device and or software package does not really support the automated downloading of podcasts.

Instead the marketing team has apparently talked some vendors into putting a Zune icon on their sites and linking that icon to a regular file download. This is some serious smoke and mirrors!

When I talked to the Zune team at CES they were beyond guarded they had all been told by corporate not to tell anyone anything and while they listened to my concerns what surprised me was one of the developers even said that the pounding I have been giving them was unfair.

This set me off somewhat as it is obvious they say they are all about community but they sure the hell don’t want critical feedback from the community. What was overly obvious from the conversation is that DRM is stifling their innovation, and we will never be able to share a non DRM audio file that will not expire when shared. DRM in my opinion is the real reason the WiFi in the device is crippled.

What was even more discouraging was that I had vetted some ideas with peers that would help the device functionally, and be very easy to implement but as I described those ideas I could tell I might as well have been talking to myself.

Hey Zune marketing team here is some podcasting 101 the beauty of podcasting is that the audio or video programming is delivered automatically, and not through a manual download. No Consumer is going to waste time downloading a single podcast and then manually adding it to their Zune so take that crap you have on your page off, and get to work and try again when the product is ready to have true podcasting support.

PODCASTING IS THE AUTOMATED DELIVERY OF AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTENT TO A MEDIA DEVICE AND UNTIL THE ZUNE OR ITS SOFTWARE INTERFACE CAN DO THAT YOUR PRODUCT IS NOT PODCAST READY!

Zune Team you are now only confusing consumers. Or are you trying to redefine the mechanics of podcast delivery by taking people back to the stone ages and having them manually download media. Zune.net

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