Tech Shout!

Yesterday, together with the grand launch of the 2nd Generation Zune PMPs, Microsoft also introduced Zune Social, the Zune Marketplace online store and Software.

Zune Social is a beta online community Web site that has been built around and powered by the general public’s passion for music. Here, users will be able to create a friends list, send song links and messages to each other, post comments on a friends profile page or on their favorite artist pages.

Users will also be able to see what their friends are listening to and receive recommendations from others in the community.

Present at the event was Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President J Allard who said, “By tapping into customers’ passion for music with Zune Social, we’re starting to change the game. This lets us start building a new, more valuable kind of relationship with consumers that, combined with other Zune innovations, will start to drive the entire music industry forward.”

At Zune Social, users will be able to create a customizable Zune Card that automatically updates to reflect the music they are listening to on their Zune or with Zune software on their computer. This Card shows the most recently played tracks and highlights that person’s all-time music favorites.

Other Zune Social members can play samples of the songs a user has been playing directly from a friend’s Zune Card or link to Zune Marketplace where they can buy or download music.

Eventually, Zune Social will enable its members to place the Zune Card on today’s most used social networking sites, where it will continue to update automatically and display what its owners are listening to.

Regarding the Zune Marketplace, it has just been restocked and redesigned to make it easier for users to find what they are looking for. The updated version of Zune Marketplace allows users to choose form a selection of over 1 million digital rights management (DRM)-free MP3s, which can be played with Zune or any other player.

Besides, the layout of Zune Marketplace has been streamlined and is much more visual making it easy to browser through the store. The new integrated search feature gives consumers one view across the music, music videos, and podcasts categories.