O Zune, where art thou?

Where the Zunes at?

I actually get ver clempted when I see one. Who would have thought Microsoft would be David to Apple's Goliath in the MP3 space. I almost spoke to a total stranger on the subway, so convinced I was of our kinship, because he carried a Zune! My IT guy owns a brown Zune. "I'm not a conformist!" he exclaimed when I asked him "why Zune?"

What sort of people buy the Zune? Bargain hunters? I've seen artsy rebellious types with a Zune; you know the type: black t-shirt, black rimmed glasses, khakis -looking all indie - BUT, sporting a Zune. I've seen obese civil servant types with Zunes; a few teenagers, but not too many Wall Streets types carrying a Zune, though.

I am not sure why, but the Zune 80 spoke to me. I like the large clear font of the Zune's UI, and the Zune's screen. I was underwhelmed by the iPod Classics's small screen. The Zune 80 has a big screen that stood out to me; first impressions count.

The Zune isn't a perfect product. I bought an alarm clock dock accessory for my Zune, which kind of...sucked. The iPod has the Zune beat in this area. I wish Zune had even a tiny fraction of iPod's accessory goodness.

The Zune Marketplace takes some getting used to. I had to call India to resolve an issue with the Zune Marketplace; I wasn't able to download songs, and had to do some minor XP surgery to fix the problem. The nice man from India walked me through it patiently. I briefly considered putting my Zune for sale on Craigs List.

It's strange, but the Zune found me, and 2 million other Zune owners. We're different, and as Rob Walker concluded in his NY Times article "Antipod", maybe it's Microsoft that's learning to think differently - at least in the MP3 space.