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When I saw “Canadian”, I thought to myself, “she does look rather Canadian”… and by “Canadian” I mean “Scottish.” :)

4 days ago on Verge Favorites: Katie Drummond

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Exactly. See my comment above on my experience with Zune Pass in 2008-2009.

4 days ago on How Google beat Apple to a streaming music service 2 replies 1 recommend

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My music industry sources just shrug whenever I asked about Microsoft. They have a loyal following but they just don’t generate that much revenue. They’re missing a mobile component and that’s where a lot of listening takes place.

That’s unfortunate for Microsoft because they really were years ahead of the pack with Zune Pass. I only used Zune Pass (and a Zune 80GB) because I was working at MSFT from 2008-2009 (for the first half of the Danger/Kin fiasco, until I saw the writing on the wall and left for Google). Once you leave the Windows ecosystem, Zune/Xbox Music becomes useless. With the standalone Zunes, you were also reliant on the Windows desktop client to sync your music, with all the hassle that implies.

I have a good friend working at Pandora so I’m rooting for them as well. They have a cool automotive integration feature for Android (iOS doesn’t provide the necessary Bluetooth RFCOMM APIs to support it) which works great with my Hyundai (lets you thumbs-up and down, change stations, etc.). My only real complaint (besides the annoyance of the limitation on skips) is that, even with Pandora One, you only get 192 kbps streaming MP3 bitrate vs. 320 kbps for Google. That’s fine for in the car, but it is a noticeable quality difference.

4 days ago on How Google beat Apple to a streaming music service 1 reply 3 recommends