Monday, November 20, 2006
Zune is number 42 and dropping fast
According to an article online * the Zune has dropped to 42nd most popular item on Amazon.com. And has continued to dropped in popularity since its introduction. I just did a quick check for "Best Sellers" in electronics on Amazon and found that the Zune has dropped again to 55. Of course the number one seller is the 30GB black iPod. There are even other MP3 players besides the iPod which are ranked higher than the Zune. Of course the advertising blitz may not have hit yet, but so far not a lot of takers.
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6 comments:
What surprises me is that Microsoft didn't start advertising before the Zune's release. Have you seen some of the ads? It's hard to tell what they're selling in some of them!
Another thing that surprises me is that the 30 Gb iPod with video is at the top! I would have put money that the nano was number 1. Any theories?
My theory is that the 30g is such a good value that it's hard to beat!
-Le
My theory about the 30GB iPod outselling the Nano is that the price point for the full iPod has dropped into "I can afford that" range. $250 for a full iPod with video is quite a good buy. I think the Nano had some of initial popularity because the full iPods were still fairly highly priced, and people couldn't justify the expense. The iPod was the happy compromise.
Another theory is that at least on Amazon, the items are ranked differently by color. A black iPod is different than a white iPod. Since the Nanos have more colors than the full iPod, then it only makes sense that individually they are not top ranked. Maybe all colors together, the Nanos would outsell the full iPods.
It is funny. I just checked the best sellers again at Amazon. The silver Nano is now #1 while the black 30GB iPod is #2.
Meanwhile, the black Zune has moved up to 50th and the brown Zune is at an amazing 185th. It sounds like the faithful MS people are keeping a fair showing in the listing. Won't it be nice to have WiFi Zune with no one to share with. :(
I did see one of the commercials on uTube. It was the one where the bird bursts into flames. I really don't get the feeling that the bird is all that happy about it either.
No sign of a Zune ad here in MN.
I haven't looked into it but what is the status of the Zune software? I just used ITunes last night, reviewed some music in the music store and just have a hard time thinking that MS will be able to get up to speed with iTunes with all of its content not to mention ease of use. And to my knowledge, I don't think their is a Mac version of the Zune software. How do they ever expect to have any iPod/Mac users to ever switch? At least Steve didn't lock out Windows users.
Let the market determine the winner!
The Zune software does not work on a Mac. Just like many companies have assumed, the market for the Mac is too small to worry about it.
I saw a few reviews of the Zune software. The response was that it had an overall nice feel about it but was not as seamless as iTunes. Which is probably true about most MS software. It will get the job done, just not in the most elegant manner. This may work fine if they start off on top and other are trying to dethrone them. But I think since Apple is the one to be dethroned, almost as good as will not be good enough.
Apple has been pretty good with continually updating iTunes and the iPod. Having MS nipping at their heels hopefully will make them innovate even faster.
If you haven't seen the Zune commercial, you didn't miss much. They have these two birds in an animation where there is a smaller bird that flys up to the bigger bird and then a mysterious stream of gas flows over to the other bird. Then the bigger bird looks like he just got jolted with electricity and he bursts into flames. Then he extinguishes, looking surprised and then bursts into flames again and then jams to some heavy metal music. I guess its a reference to the WiFi music sharing feature (3 plays or 3 days). The Zune is never shown but the Zune logo appears at the end of the commercial.
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