Update: With all of these updates, if you would like to view the original post without the need to find it first, please do. That said, please keep in mind the fact that 1) It’s a parody. 2) A parody is intentionally written to mock. 3) There are some decent follow-ups that you may want to take into consideration beyond this (for example, what follows). I believe it would be worth your time to come back to them if/when time allows. 4) Thanks for keeping these three things in mind. :)

So two more things,

1) I’ve followed-up this post with a listing of what I feel to be the better, more creative attempts to mock my mockery. In short, if you are going to spend the time to write a comment that disagrees with the premise behind something I might post, at least do so creatively, or with solid factual reasons to back up your feelings (or both.)

2) To the second point,

Hey M Dave. Enjoyed the post. Not a Zune fan, but appreciate the interface as it looks good. I haven’t spent a lot of time with it nor will I buy one, but at least I’ve got good reasons beyond the nonsense I’ve read in some of the replies above. People, good tech is good tech and the fact that some device isn’t more popular OR the one you chose doesn’t make it crap. My personal reasons for not buying one is:

1. Doesn’t currently support podcasts. I’m a podcaster so this is a feature I want. Chances are this will be fixed in either the firmware or with the next gen.

2. Microsoft’s payment to Universal music. While this shouldn’t be a showstopper as it doesn’t come out of my pocket directly (the price didn’t go up as a result of this), it really ticks me off and is a bad precedent.

3.Doesn’t work with a Mac. And yes I know that the iPod also didn’t work with Windows PCs when it first came out. If I was a Windows user, I wouldn’t have bought an iPod back then either.

Thanks for the update on Erica Sadun. I reviewed her iMovie books on Amazon and at MyMac.com and gave them thumbs up for because of how great they were. Here’s hoping that she’ll do a new one for iLife 07 (whenever the hell Apple decides to release it)

The above comes from a recent follow-up from Guy. These all seem like legitimate concerns to me. Maybe they do to you as well? Not sure, but having this information brought to the top of the post seemed like a good thing to do to ensure you had an ever more solid base of information to make any future purchasing decisions on.

Thanks for the follow-up, Guy! Oh, and regarding Erica: *COMPLETELY* agree! Erica is a one-in-a-billion talent. We geeks are lucky to have her as one of our own. :D

Update: So here’s a fun picture: Four generations of mobile-media devices, and an example of an attempt to breathe new life into my favorite headphones (Bose TriPort’s ROCK!!!)

DSC00277.JPG

If not obvious, yes, that’s a big phat crack in the screen of my AV400 > still works! Just can’t watch movies (directly; can still plug it into a TV), and can only see the right hand portion of the artist or track as I’m scrolling through the list, which is obviously a problem. The Rio was it’s replacement, and I picked up the Zen a while back because of its size. The Rio is obviously trashed, though still works like a charm, and the control knob (joy stick?) on the Zen broke off, requiring my fingernail to scroll through the various tracks, artists, and settings.

The point? When I state “I love my Zune!”, I do so from the viewpoint of experience with, and a passion for, mobile-media devices.

NOTE: I gave my iPod to a (niece/nephew) of mine when I purchased my Archos AV400 — No, I won’t say which one as, made obvious by this pic, I’ve got *LOTS* of them (a pic which is missing a sister, a brother, a brother and sister and law, and six nieces and nephews) and the rest would hate me if they knew which one I gave it to (or even if they knew that I gave it to one of them, and they weren’t the one. I hope none of them read this post! ;-)) so suffice it to say, my iPod (though it was in good shape before gifting it to the aforementioned niece/nephew) was “unavailable” for the five generation photo.

Update: So with full expectations to visit Digg and find this post with a negative Digg rating, I was both happy and surprised to see,

dugg-646.png

Which goes to show that there are some people who actually read the word “parody“, and did so with an understanding of what the word “parody” is defined as,

par·o·dy (păr’ə-dē) pronunciation
n., pl. -dies.

1.
1. A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule. See synonyms at caricature.
2. The genre of literature comprising such works.
2. Something so bad as to be equivalent to intentional mockery; a travesty: The trial was a parody of justice.

(ed. Emphasis added)

In a follow-up comment, afruff23 asks,

Was this blog a joke?

Yep. *Parodies* usually are.

To each of you who Dugg this… Thanks for both the Digg as well as showcasing the fact that you actually read the post, and understood it for what it was… A Parody, A Mockery…

A Joke!

As always, thanks for *reading*… ;-)

Quick-Note: I think it also goes to show that the Zune has a lot stronger footing in the mind of the consumer than most folks are willing to give credit. Why do I love my Zune? Because it’s really, *REALLY*, nice. As many of you point out in an attempt to poke fun (and in some cases, do so quite successfully, e.g. Jeremy’s comment below), there are simply not enough people on this planet who own a Zune *yet* to truly put the sharing feature to the test. So for now, my love affair has everything to do with the fact that after owning and experiencing a multitude of mobile media devices, including an iPod, Zen, (insert: forgot about my Archos AV400, which *was* my all time favorite before purchasing my ->) and Rio (ce2100 series: which was my all time favorite before receiving and experiencing my Zune), Zune has proven to bring reason for praise. With or without the wireless sharing feature, it really is that nice of a device.

Update: It just occured to me that while I have a good portion of the blogosphere’s attention at the moment, and in the spirit of “sharing the love”, my colleague, Erica Sadun, someone in whom most certainly can not be mistaken as a ‘MSFT FanBoy’ (partly because she’s a girl, but even more so because she’s a MacAttacker through-and-through), has a ShortCut title as well as several articles on the Zune, both pro and con, that I believe many of you might take interest in. Here’s a quick-list with a few of the mentioned titles/articles, of which you can find more by visiting her bio.

What’s The Big Deal About Making Music Players Social? Microsoft Zune and the Big Idea

Five Zune Secrets You Need to Know

and the mentioned ShortCut title,

Eight Great Ways to Get the Most from Your Zune

You can subscribe to Erica’s *Mac*DevCenter blog to get even more of the good stuff she has to flow your direction on any given day, something in which I would encourage you to do, as Erica most definitely knows hers stuff!

Update: The *LOVE* just keeps on flowing > 92 love letters (and counting!) to be exact. To each and every one of you,

You guys are the best! *MUCH* love thrown right back at ya.

While it would be tough to choose just one of you as my favorite, I particularly like KenLenny’s comment,

I wasn’t convinced that this was very entertaining, but then I read some of the comments and now I’m actually giggling. The frothy-mouthed apple zealots, foaming at the slight of their champion, it’s just too good. Thanks for the masterful troll.

And I think Mr. Apples has summed it up best,

The iPod fans showed up in force to offer a plethora of half-truths to discredit the Zune. The Zune is obviously having an effect in the market or this blog wouldn’t have turned into a flame-war.

Around the holiday season, I did some crazy research on purchasing my 3rd MP3 player. I was pretty dead set against the Zune, but it came out ahead for features I wanted and it has not disappointed. Sure, its first generation, so it’s not perfect, but it is a great start, and the minor ‘holes’ are nothing that a firmware update couldn’t cure.

Many people have selective memory and don’t recall the iPod had a good many flaws post-launch.

Keep the love flowing people! MMMMmmmwwwaaa :{}

[Original Post]
Continuing in my new found love affair with my Zune, I present to you a parody of “Hi, I’m a Mac”, “and I’m a PC” to hopefully help bring greater understanding as to why I feel MSFT has most definitely hit on something big.

Update: For a greater understanding of the “Scroll Click…” comments, please see “Week 1 : The Zune Experience“, posted to my dev.aol.com blog earlier this morning.

And so, without further adieu, I present,

“Hi, I’m an iPod”, “and I’m a Zune”



Enjoy!

[Commercial.Begin()]

iPod: Hey Zune, Check out this new track I just purchased on the iTunes Music Store

iPod: [Scroll… Click… Scroll… Click…] Here it is… err wait, no… sorry, that was something else… One sec [Scroll… Click… Scroll… Click… Scroll… Click… Scroll… Click…] Here… no… one sec…. [Scroll… Click… Scroll… Click… Scroll… Click… Scroll… Click… Scroll… Click… Scroll… Click… Scroll… Click… Scroll… Click…]

Zune: Ummm.. Dude, seriously, what are you doing?

iPod: I’m looking for this cool new track I just purchased on iTunes. Oh, here it is! Here, take my left earphone and check it out.

Zune: Ummm… That’s awfully sweet of you, iPod, but thanks, I have my own.

iPod: Your own what?

Zune: Earphones.

iPod: Well right, but I bet you’ve never heard this new track I just purchased on iTunes.

Zune: What’s it called?

iPod: “Say it right” by ..

Zune: Nelly Furtado? Yeah, I have that right here

Zune: [Click. Scan. Click. Scroll. Click.Play]

Zune: It’s a great track, huh?! Here, check out some of her’err, wait… You don’t have any built in wireless sharing capabilities, do you?

iPod: Did I hear you say “sharing”? Uhh… That’s illegal, Zune! You can’t sha-

Zune: It’s not illegal. In fact, it’s encouraged… You know, that whole “social viral sharing -> marketing” thing and all.

iPod: Well, you can still borrow one of my ear phones if you’d li..

Zune: iPod! I said “viral sharing” not “sharing whatever viruses you just so happen to have looming around those ear pads of yours”

[Girl Zune walks by]

iPod: Well, hello there :D Heard the new Nelly Furtado track? Here, borrow an ear-

[Girl Zune’s Screen Beeps]: “Boy Zune would like to share “Nelly Furtado: Say it right”: Accept?

Girl Zune: Ohhh… I haven’t heard that yet. Of course!

[Girl Zune smiles at Boy Zune from across the room and walks towards him with curious, batting eye lids]

Girl Zune: So, what other sorts of ’surprises’ do you have on that [giggle] ‘device’ of yours? [giggle]

[Boy Zune smiles]

Boy Zune: Well, with my Zune Pass, the sky’s the limit! Whatcha gotten’ mind?

[Girl Zune smiles back, giggles again, and then…]

iPod: But I’ve got viruses, err, I mean an earphone you can borrow!

[Girl Zune doesn’t even hear iPod, and as I was saying… continues to listen to more tracks offered up by Boy Zune, while offering up a few licks-err, I mean, tracks of her own]

[iPod slowly sobs]

iPod: It’s those damn viru- ‘errr-ral’ marketers fault! They’re the ones to blame!

[iPod, with a slight increase in cheer]

iPod: Well, at least I still have my 30 second free clips. … as long as … I’m … connected to my PC’err, .. Mac’err, ..

iPod: Ohhh…. What the hell am I, anyway!

[iPod, falling ever so swiftly towards the downward spiral, begins an identity crisis, while Boy Zune and Girl Zune continue to share in their new found moment]

[Commercial.End(”or is it just the beginning? ;-)”)]