Yesterday, a student from the University of Kansas in a class called Multimedia Reporting contacted me asking if I’d be interested in answering some questions about my experience being a Microsoft Zune customer. Apparently, he read a few of my past Zune-related Hmm blog entries, including the ones where I disagreed — and still do — with Andy Ihnatko’s Chicago Times-Sun review.

Assuming I have the time — which in this case I did — I’m always happy to help students (hint: see homepage for my contact details), so I agreed. His interview questions are bolded and my answers shared below.

Can you tell me a little about yourself, what you do, about your website, age, and where you’re from?
I am co-owner of KMR Enterprises and we own and operate dozens of websites. Most are programming oriented and support my primary business site online, our flagship site, tdscripts.com. I am also the major contributor to our daily updated blog makeyougohmm.com and have been the host of a two hour weekly web radio show since May 2000. This Friday will be our 310th live streamed show.

I’m happily married with three teenage boys and we own and operate two businesses located about 45 minutes south of Seattle, Washington. One of our businesses is offline and has nothing to do with the web and the other is KMR Enterprises.

My full bio is available at tdscripts.com/bio.html and currently needs to be updated.

Do you have a general perception of the iPod? MP3 players?
I am a huge music fan and spend most of my time behind a desk where portable MP3 players for regular use aren’t practical. Two of our three sons regularly use MP3 players. One uses the Sirius Stiletto 100 and the other has been dividing time between the Zune and iPod trying to decide which player he would like as a Christmas present.

Also, I haven’t used the iPod (5g black, 80GB) very much since it is my wife’s. From what I’ve used of the device it’s very well designed and sleek. I like the interaction with iTunes and have a few concerns about syncing multiple iPods with a single computer (e.g being able to block playlists from displaying on other synced devices). From my understanding this isn’t possible with multiple iPods sharing the same computer. Since we only have one I can’t test this directly to find out for certain.

Why did you buy a Zune?
I enjoy buying new gadgets on launch day and sharing my customer experience (whether I was unable to buy one as was the case with the Xbox 360 and Sony PS3, or was successful like with the Zune and Nintendo Wii) online. People can read lots of reviews out there at popular tech/gadget sites but few with great detail come from actual customers. Many major tech/gadget sites get advanced review/loaner copies that you or I don’t have the ability to look at ahead of time and judge for ourselves, so we must judge through the lens of the publication. I wait in line like any other regular Joe does.

Since my wife already had the 5g iPod, I wanted to try what Microsoft was offering. From the advance reviews I’d read, I was expecting to be trying it out, writing about it on the blog and then taking it back to the store and paying the restocking fee. I didn’t think I’d be keeping it if it was as bad as many of the reviews I had read were saying.

What do you like/dislike about the Zune? Has it been an enjoyable experience so far? Have you had any problems?

Yes, it has been an enjoyable experience so far. I chose not to take it back to the store, so that says I felt I’d use it enough to keep. I have been able to use an inexpensive car FM stereo adapter to be able to listen to the Zune in the car through the stereo and as I write this I’m listening to music from the Zune marketplace. After the free 14 day trial for the unlimited music plan, I renewed the subscription for roughly $15/month.

Have had a few minor issues, but nothing major. Stuff like the Zune not synching when plugged in a few times. Had the same problem with the iPod.

If you were to summarize your MP3 player experience in one sentence, what would you say?
One sentence? LOL, if you knew me better you probably wouldn’t ask that, Brian.

I like to use MP3 players when away from the desk and there are numerous good choices for consumers out there. If you like the ability to have the greatest amount of music at your disposal, over a million songs and don’t mind a monthly rental fee go with something like the Zune. If you prefer to own your own music and not rent/sample music than get one of the other players like the iPod.

I think the biggest difference between players is the master music library to choose from be it iTunes store, Zune, Napster, Y! Music, etc. With the iPod/iTunes I can only listen/sample to 30 second clips. That doesn’t work for me. I would rather download the songs/albums legally and listen to them to see if I like the song before shelling out money to buy them. I don’t care for DRM files and like the ability to buy the CD and rip to a format (MP3) that can be shared with any portable player and many car stereos. For example, our car stereo plays MP3 natively, this way we don’t have to pack around a dozen CDs. I can get those same music CDs on a single data MP3 CD. Convenience. Or in the case of portable music players that provide up to 20,000 songs (iPod), how much more music could a single person want to carry around?

A few of these questions are explained in your blog posts, but I’d like to hear exactly how the Zune experience has been. Would it be OK if I used a picture of your Zune from your blog if I cite it as such? Again, thanks a bunch man. Hope to hear from you this evening.

Yes, I’ve answered most of these questions in the blog posts but some readers might like them summarized here if they are still contemplating buying a Zune. And yes, you have my permission to use the photo with the proper attribution.

Fascinating that one of the side effects of saying I like something that could have been returned to the store has been met with condemnation from some other (mostly predicable) camps saying that I’m some kind of Microsoft PR plant. I still haven’t heard word one directly from anybody at Microsoft on any of the Zune-related posts I’ve made here and the archives are filled with dozens of posts I’ve made strongly criticizing Microsoft on a wide variety of products, services and procedures.

I bought something others didn’t like and have enjoyed it, simple as that. As I’ve written on my blog, we might be buying another for our teenager this Christmas — if that’s what he says he wants and because I don’t want to spoil the surprise [ed note: he sometimes reads this blog], it might not be under the tree and something for a birthday present instead.

If he chooses the iPod then we’ll look that direction instead. Glad I was able to help out, Brian.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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