It is time yet again for another Song Spotlight here at Zunited and this week I have been given the honor, nay the privilege, to present to you a song I believe is worthy of the title. Now, I may get some flak about this, but this week’s song choice is one of my favorite artists: Justin Bieber! This week, it’s—
Okay, I can’t bear lying longer than that. This week I’ve chosen a song from one of my favorite shows, Chuck. Now, I didn’t pick this show just to annoy Jon or to fulfill my duty of having everyone in the world know about it, honestly. Throughout the day I find that I start singing the chorus of this song over and over and over again.
The song I’ve chosen is “Skinny Love” by Bon Iver, shown in the following scene from the show, the episode titled “Chuck vs the Break-Up”
1:50 the scene starts, 3:00 the song starts, 4:20 the song picks up.
Listen to the song in its entirety here:
This isn’t the only song by Bon Iver Chuck has used, in a later episode they also use “Creature Fear” from the same album For Emma, Forever Ago. The show does, in fact, use many Indie-sounding rock bands that are quite good and have definitely opened my mind to new music–everything from Band of Horses, The Eels, Plants and Animals, The Temper Trap, and even revisiting Imogen Heap–even if it seems like the show is quite heavy with emotion, that’s when the good music selection rears its head, it truly is much more playful than the clip.
But for now, I’ll continue to hum and indulge in the campy and yet soulful lyrics by Bon Iver, raising tone and volume just like the lead.
Come on skinny love just last the year
I don’t mean to be the one to brag about all of this, but this is basically our doing. Yep, here at Zunited we like to campaign. Like when we told Microsoft that Windows Phone 7 Series Phones Devices Mobile Handsets was way too long of a name. What did they do? They shortened it. Well, Microsoft Points is just another battle in the long series of wars we’ve got going on with Microsoft here. If you’ve followed the podcast at all then you know how much we dislike…HATE…Microsoft Points. We even had a podcast episode titled “Microsoft Points Suck“.
(Our latest campaign? To stop Microsoft from using the letters “kin” in that order too much. Join us!)
All right, so we alone may not be the reason for this but Yahoo! is reporting that Microsoft will be opening up the Zune Marketplace and allow for credit card purchases instead of just buying Microsoft Points.
Microsoft said that anybody who looked up a track on Bing would now be able to stream the track for free via Zune and “purchase any of the millions of pure MP3s from the Zune catalogue.” The move fits with Microsoft’s strategy of pushing its Zune-related services, as opposed to the Zune device itself, and should give the Zune brand some new exposure. After all, while Bing may still lag badly behind Google in the search market, it is attracting millions of searchers a month.
While allowing credit card purchases alone may not gain Zune any more exposure it sure will help alleviate the pains of its current users. Microsoft Points have been the burden of Zune customers for quite some time–people do not like them because they must be bought in bulk and there are always Points leftover that you cannot use. That said, some find them useful.
The new credit card purchasing will allow you to bypass buying any Points and go straight to downloading the song. Users will still have the option to buy points, however.
Yahoo! states that Zune is behind iTunes and Amazon in the digital music market share with 2.6%. Amazon has 7.6%, iTunes has 69.1%.
This post is by Russ812.
From Wikipedia:
“Fish Heads” is a novelty song by comedy rock duo Barnes and Barnes, featured on their 1980 album Voobaha. It has often been played on the Dr. Demento show, and is the second most honored song in Demento show history.On a personal note, besides this being a big hit on the radio in the early 80s, my mom had the picture disc album, and it looked/was shaped like a giant fish head.
You just don’t get comedy music videos like that anymore. Now you just get Lady Gaga’s vagina. (I guess that’s still kind of funny, in it’s own way.)
The music video: (the song doesn’t actually start until 2:20 in, if you want to skip ahead.)
This post is by Sakai.
This week, i’ll be giving out one of my favorite songs.
I myself am an old soul. I enjoy listening to simple beats, big bands, and simple lyrics.
The song this week, “We saw the Sea”, is from the 1936 movie, “Follow the Fleet”. The movie starts off of with a wonderful comedic piece about being in the navy. The song is by Fred Astaire
The song is very catchy and holds an energetic beat throughout the song. I’ll find myself whistling to it throughout the day.
Hope you guys will enjoy the song as much as i do!
It’s official: Robbie Bach (President) and J Allard (Chief Experience Officer) of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices section are leaving the company. The division –which includes Xbox, Windows Phone, and of course Zune– will now answer directly to Steve Ballmer. It’s yet unclear what this will mean for consumers or Microsoft’s direction, but hopefully the services and devices we know and love will continue to thrive and grow.
With the recent news of Zune 4.5 and the leaked, then announced, Zune HD 64gb, Microsoft has wasted no time in announcing the much-wanted Zune Video Pass. The Zune Pass is the all-you-can-eat buffet music service that Microsoft and Zune currently provide for $15 a month. Zune (and video) lovers everywhere have been clamoring for a video subscription service to download all the video they can for a once-a-month fee; with that has come questions of when, why not, and how much?
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A Rockford, Illinois-based ophthalmologist is suing Microsoft because the software giant allegedly infringed on patents that he holds the rights to. He says Microsoft added technology to the Zune that helped increase its sales, without his consent, even after he tried to negotiate a licencing deal with the company.
SeattlePI claims that Dr. Edward Yavitz says “Microsoft willingly infringed two of his patents” which allow the end-user to quickly tag and download music from the MP3 Player’s FM radio with just one click.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] A feature, which is still prominent in Zune’s advertising — viewable right now at zune.net.
In his complaint (PDF), Yavitz says he sent Microsoft a letter in October 2006 to pitch them the idea for the next Zune. His patents – Nos. 6,463,649 and 6,473,792 – were both filed in 2000 and granted in 2002.
Yavitz claims he sent Microsoft an email stating that “a simple $5 hardware improvement [...] will allow for the following when the user is listening to FM radio on the ZUNE…” and continues to state features that are available in current iterations of the Zune device. He closes saying that other competitors like Apple’s iPod, and Google, will not have the technology available and thus this is a competitive feature. However, Yavitz says he never received an email from Microsoft with a reply. Yet, in 2008, tag to download was added in a firmware update.
Yavitz filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. Officially, it is his company, Yavitz LCC, that is asking for triple monetary damages, injunctions on Microsoft Zune products, and a jury trial.
Microsoft has not had the best of luck with patent infringement complaints. The latest: a $290 million payout to company i4i for XML patent infringements in Microsoft Word.
Bill Gates’ home–where iPods and iPhones are banned from ever being used–is much different than his corporation. That’s because iPhones seem to be plentiful at the Microsoft campus according to the Wall Street Journal. They’re using it to check email, personal usage, and to “better understand the competition.”
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Just about three months ago, Microsoft lost a law suit battle against i4i; the Texas-based company, i4i, was suing Microsoft because they claimed that Microsoft Word infringed on patents that they have held for some time. SFGate calls it a “technology for processing and storing information on the structure of an electronic document” — something many refer to us as just XML. Back in January, Microsoft decided to file for an appeal, which not only brought up a rejection but uncovered evidence of Microsoft trying to actually bury i4i.
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After popular music band Pink Floyd decided to take its record label, EMI, to court over single-sold song royalties, the band’s music can be pulled from digital stores altogether.
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