This weekend I spent some time assembling new playlists with Zune 3.0 for an upcoming trip.  I was visiting a # of websites to look at playlists (e.g. XMFans.com) and an annoyance was the number of steps required to copy/paste between the browser and Zune.  So I wrote an Internet Explorer 8 Accelerator to help simplify and reduce the amount of copy/paste actions.  According to the IE8 website, "Accelerators let you efficiently complete your everyday browsing activities like mapping directions, translating words, emailing your friends, and more in just a few mouse clicks."  In building the accelerator, I discovered a wealth of detail available in Zune Marketplace on the web - you can sample music, read artists bios, browse charts, comments, similar artists and more.  

Install Zune Accelerator for IE8 (Beta 2)

To activate the accelerator, highlight the text on a page (Left Click+Drag).  You'll see the new accelerator icon (in blue in image to right).  When you click on this, it will launch the accelerator window.

I'm sure there are better ways to do this, but it was fun and useful enough for my needs.  Other Zune accelerators tend to break out accelerators by Artist, Song, etc. instead of aggregating into one.  Maybe I'll try and build an IE8 Web Slice for Zune Social next.   More details on writing IE8 Accelerators is available here.

For more accelerators, check out the IE8 Accelerator Gallery

Ahh yes, Olympics frenzy is upon us.  The time when countries cheer on their athletes in games of sport and goodwill.  It's also a time when companies cheer on their contributions to the Olympic efforts and services available to keep tabs on the event which is lining up to be the largest streamed event in history.  Since we're Addicted to Digital Media around here, it wouldn't be the Olympics without a roundup of the ways you can keep tabs and this year it's much cooler - with thousands of hours of content available in HD streaming on the Web for Windows and Mac users, perhaps for just a few weeks we'll see some peace and harmony.  Unfortunately for my friends outside the US, these services are specific to the USA so apologies. 

So, here's the roundup:

1.  Olympics Tracker in the new MSN Toolbar

What: This isn't your old MSN Toolbar.  Generally I cringe at installing any toolbar app into my browser, but this new version is both functional and visually slick in part thanks to being built with Microsoft Silverlight.  You'll find an Olympics button that presents the latest medal count, photos, video and sport-specific news right from the comfort of your web browser. The button even glows when updates happen to notify you in a polite way.  Alternately, Live Search is optimizing search results to include latest stats, news, and medal counts.  Details available here.

How to get it: Visit www.newmsntoolbar.com and download the free toolbar.

2.  Live and HD On-demand Events on NBCOlympics.com

What: So you forgot to set your DVR to record that amazing football game, or want to watch live coverage but it's not being broadcast on the myriad of NBC/Universal TV stations?  Have no fear - NBC and Microsoft Silverlight are bringing over 1000 hours of live and on-demand Olympics coverage to your PC or Mac.  On-demand coverage will use a brand-new adaptive streaming technology capable of true HD-quality video over the Web - no stopping and buffering either, the technology automatically adjusts video quality to available bandwidth.  Live events are presented using the Emmy-award winning Windows Media technologies.  Be sure to check out the enhanced player - in the Control room you can stream up to four events - at the same time! 

How to get it: Visit www.nbcolympics.com/video and check out the new player.  Note: Silverlight is a required installation for the experience.

3.  Windows Media Center on Windows Vista Premium & Ultimate

What: If you have a Windows Vista Premium or Ultimate PC, you can watch NBC Olympics On the Go in Windows Media Center, an Internet-delivered catch-up TV service from NBC Universal powered by Wavexpress’ TVTonic platform, no TV-tuner required. This free download-and-play service differentiates Windows Media Center as the platform with the highest-quality Internet-delivered Olympics experience in the USA. No word yet on whether this works via Extender - I will have to try it later.

With NBC Olympics On the Go in Windows Media Center, you will get:

• NBC Sports’ complete on-air HDTV coverage of the Beijing Olympics on the NBC, USA and Universal networks – even when you don’t have a TV tuner for your Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate PC
• 225 hrs of long-form Olympics video over 17 days
• 24 sports, full opening ceremony, and a closing ceremony montage
• Up to HD quality, with the vast majority of the video delivered in 840x480 progressive scan resolution at 1.5 Mbps bit rate, plus several events per day delivered in 1080i resolution

How to get it: Click here for details or here for the TVTonic app  Note: for 64-bit Windows users, hang tight- there's an update going through certification that should provide support before the games actually begin. 

There are a host of other ways to get the Olympic experience as well. Google has a summer games page and mobile page and I'm sure to have missed some others.  Tell us what you think- how will you be watching the Olympics?

Lots of reports of issues with battery life on the 3G in the Meme the past few days.  Adding insult to injury comes confirmation that most 3rd party adapters can't charge the power-hungry thing. I got bit by this yesterday for the first time when I plugged my iPhone 3G into my VAISTech SoundLinQ adapter in my Toyota Prius.  As soon as I did, I got a wacky message on the device that it would not charge.

Firmware problem?  Not likely. Reports are trickling in that the original iPhone charged via Firewire pin-out while the new 3G only supports USB 2.0, breaking compatibility with many devices including Apple's on pricey and discontinued HiFi sound system. This is most disappointing given I depend on my daily commute to charge my phone up on days when I'm using the iPhone instead of my BlackJack II.  A visit to the VAISTech forums and subsequent iLounge extensive review notes:

Another difference Apple snuck into the iPhone 3G is the latest change to its ever-shifting definition of Dock Connector accessory compatibility. 
This time, Apple has quietly discontinued support for certain types of charging accessories, namely ones that used the FireWire standard rather than USB. Unlike the video accessory change, developers should have known that this one was coming for a long while, so you’re less likely to be affected if you’ve made a recent purchase.
Because of this change, in addition to old accessories such as Belkin’s Auto Kit and Bose’s original SoundDock—identified by one of Apple’s hand-selected reviewers as no longer capable of charging the iPhone 3G—you’ll find that more recent accessories such as XtremeMac’s RoadShow have also stopped working in any way. They’ll bring up a passive screen that says “Charging is not supported by this accessory,” then a new nag screen that says “This accessory is not made to work with iPhone - Charging is not supported.” For RoadShow, which only did two things—AV-out and charging—this change kills any last vestige of utility the old accessory might have had, requiring the purchase of at least a new charger.

So I can't listen to my iPhone via the integrated system and charge it at the same time and doing so at the office isn't really an option since I'm in meetings most of the day. WOW.  Adding insult, the in-car adapter cost more than the iPhone 3G!  Talk about forcing an upgrade cycle. 

Apparently others are having issues with this as well:

• Apple Gazette
• InformationWeek
• StuffTV
• AT&T Forums 
• MacRumors Forums
• USA Today
• Tim Heuer

At that cost, I might as well sell my SoundLinq on eBay and use my Zune all the time in the car.  At least then I can sync and charge from my garage and get the benefit of a ZunePass Subscription for years of music at a cost still cheaper than buying a new in-car adapter.

Update: VAIS Technology rapidly responded to my email inquiry noting they will be offering compatible cables for SL2i in about two weeks.  VAIS will also have an adapter available in about a month for SLi and SL2Vi owners. No word yet on pricing.  Thanks Eugene!

A few weeks ago, I was asked if wanted an opportunity to review a new software app under embargo that is designed to solve one of the great remaining problems with any music library - fixing album art and metadata.  Over the years between WMP/Zune/iTunes conversions of my library, converting all of my tracks into 160kbps MP3, migrating between HDDs and just plain idiosyncracies with ID3 tags and where album art gets stored, my library has become a severe mess.  TuneUp promised to fix it and I have to say aside from a few minor nits, it does a commendable job and is now available for download in two versions: TuneUp and TuneUp Gold but more on that later.

Around the UI
TuneUp is a companion app to iTunes for Windows (Mac coming this Fall) - it rides shotgun, snapping to the right-hand side of iTunes and listens into your library via iTunes' scripting engine. The UI offers four options - Clean, Cover Art, Now Playing, and Concerts.  The first two options - Clean and Cover Art are the meat of the app.  The second two options- Now Playing and Concerts are similar to other solutions offer links to YouTube, Stubhub, Amazon, Google, and eBay searches for artist information and concert listings in your area (via Ticketmaster/Stubhub).  But what sets TuneUp apart is the cleaning feature. My library started off with about 40% accurate information (horrible!) and by running through TuneUp's algorithm, was able to successfully match the majority of my songs. 

Taking it for a Spin
After backing up my music library, I did a series of ad-hoc tests to determine the accuracy of the service. TuneUp representatives tell me it works by applying a heuristic evaluating ID3 tags, filename, and even samples the audio of the song to create a fingerprint of the content. From there, it's matched against Gracenote's massive library of songs.   Gracenote is now a subsidiary of Sony and they've been making great strides in accuracy since their grass-roots efforts as user-supported CDDB so many years ago.

TuneUp correctly found a large # of U2 songs in my library that had missing album art or inaccurate media information, mostly a mix-match of Genre information.  Results are listed in one of three categories - Matches, Likely Matches, and Processing.  All display by album and can drill down to You can then choose to save each track. 

Not Perfect, But Closing in on the Target
Most of my issues with TuneUp are easily solvable.  First the UI has layout issues with the progress bar often colliding with text.  Here is a good example:

Another issue is accuracy on Live Sets or rare tracks.  The library does a good enough job of identifying the songs, but normally matches them to studio recordings.  As of right now, I wouldn't recommend TuneUp for eclectic music libraries. 

Also, I've noticed the Genre naming is quite a bit different across the industry - U2 suddenly went from a mix of Pop and Rock to Adult Alternative.  I don't know if that's a bad thing though I'm not sure Bono would agree.  Sheryl Crow's "Good is Good" genre became, "Singer-Songwriter".  Huh?! I actually started using it as an indicator for when content had been cleaned in my library.

Then there's the pricing.  The app appears to be ad-supported, with an American Apparel banner ad at the bottom of the screen.

Pricing and Advertisements
TuneUp is free to evaluate with over 500 song clean-ups and 50 album covers.  This is  a commendable # for testing and the price of $11.95 for an unlimited version is reasonable.  What I don't see noted here however is whether the Gold version removes the advertisements at the bottom.  I'd like to see more details about how TuneUp intends to use this space and exactly what information is shared with advertisers. Right now this appears to be limited to American Apparel - I don't see much of a fit between the ad and the content though, it would be less annoying if they did some frequency capping and targeted the ads to my interests.  I suspect this is to come in a later release.

Features I'd like to see
TuneUp isn't perfect- but it's pretty darn close.  Here are a few features I'd like to see included:

• View ID3 Tags and Fix.  iTunes will offer, but I can only see all of TuneUps changes after they're applied.
• Duplicate finder.  Yes, iTunes has a similar feature but is largely dependent on you as the user to go through and find
• Lyrics finder. Gracenote offers the service, would be good to see here.
• Offer to Remove Missing Songs from iTunes. WMP and Zune talk directly to the file system and know when files are removed.  iTunes tries to play and then gives you the dreaded "bang".  Nuke em all as an option.
• Zune/WMP Media Bridge.  Ensure media info is correctly set in the places Zune & WMP look, and offer a sync option for playlists, playcount, and ratings.  (Check out MusicBridge as a good proxy)
• Genre Mapper. Ability to rename a Gracenote genre (e.g. Adult Alternative) to Pop or whatever you wish.  It's a highly contentious and subjective topic.
• Faster indexing and better notification. TuneUp normally works well with ~50 tracks loaded but I decided to try and break it load in over 1000 tracks at a time.  It actually held up remarkably well but the UI updates started getting slow and I wasn't sure if it died or not.  A countdown time or est. time remaining option would be a big help.

Summary
TuneUp solves a major problem of most music enthusiasts, though if you're fastidious about your ID3 tagging, have invested hours in genre matching and the like, you may find continuing to manually update to be right for you.  Also, if you wear a tin foil hat and are concerned about personally identifiable information such as track names, playcounts and personal ratings being uploaded to TuneUp, you may want to scrub through the privacy statement. TuneUp assures us this is used for improvements to the service and personalization features such as concert listings (e.g. they won't give you a suggested concert for a one-star rated artist you hate).  For the mainstream music lover, TuneUp is a worthy addition to your toolkit, even in this first release with one caveat- back up your library before you try.  It's not perfect, but it's major improvement over in-app solutions.  Be sure to tell us how your experiences are going in the comments below.

Over the years, I've been stymied when I've wanted to link to an artist, album, playlist, podcast, or just about anything on Zune via the Web.  Prior to this feature, there was just no way to link directly from the Web (a feature iTunes has had for some time).  Thankfully, the Zune team has quietly launched their ZuneLinks service for sharing links to Zune Marketplace and Zune Social.  So if you have a podcast to share or music you like, you can now link up.

http://social.zune.net/links/ZuneLinks.aspx

My personal favorite, the Zune Social experience.  The links take you directly to Zune Social where you preview the songs, see stats on listenership, read a review and more:

• Linkin Park
• Jimmy Buffett
• Alice in Chains
• Collective Soul 

And a few podcast examples linking to marketplace:

• The Chris Pirillo Show
• The Family Guy FOXCast
• The Media Center Show

Feature suggestions I've sent to the team:

• A Copy to Clipboard button
• <img border="0" .> :)
• Convincing the team (or an enterprising enthusiast) to develop an add-in for Windows Live Writer.

How would you improve the experience?

Earlier this week at Microsoft’s Advance08 conference, Robbie Bach and Mark Kroese presented some examples of how the company is putting the fun in ad-funded experiences on three screens – TV, PC, and Mobile devices, with content examples including Gaming , Video, Music, and Mobile scenarios.  I wanted to provide a few additional thoughts about what was shown to the audience of advertisers but with a consumer perspective.  It’s our job to make sure there is a clear value for the consumer, often in the form of “free stuff” in exchange for a sponsorship message that’s lightweight (read, doesn’t piss off the consumer) while meeting the goals of the brand advertiser who is footing the bill.  Here are a few examples:

Gaming – Among the 12M+ Xbox 360 owners, nearly 10M have Xbox Live accounts, connecting to the community to participate in multiplayer games and community activities such as tournaments.  One of the most popular features on Xbox Live are the free downloads – for example, a recent Nissan/Forza 2 Motorsport promotion involved a free downloadable car pack for in-game play, and an online tournament where the winner won an actual Nissan car. 

The Result: Over 350,000 downloads of the free car pack, and over 6.7 million game sessions played during the tournament.

Video -  Movies are universally appealing, and Xbox Live Video Marketplace is no different.  McDonald’s recently completed their “Burgercon” promotion on Xbox Live by offering a free movie download to all Xbox Live users, in this case “Austin Powers”.

The Result: The movie became the most popular movie ever downloaded on Xbox Live.

Music  & Mobile – Like Movies, Music is also universally appealing and a largely social type of experience.  Zune Social is an online community where Zune owners can opt-in to share their music interests and listens with friends.  In the past four months, nearly 2 million Zune owners have chosen to participate the new Zune Social.  One concept we’re piloting this summer is the ability to connect with artists and music events as “friends” on the Social.  The goal is to take what’s been so successful on Xbox with gaming and video, and extend that value exchange to music enthusiasts on Zune Social.  The experience is a microsite on Zune Social, offering free music and video downloads, sponsored by brands such as Doritos in the example shown and connected to music downloads from the CMJ Music Festival. 

Rule #1 is, “Put music in their ears and a smile on their face,” so we’re going to be very careful in how sponsorship messages are presented.  In the example shown this week, it’s just a background wallpaper with attribution to Doritos – no in-song ads as some have speculated.  As a Zune Social member, I'd have to opt-in to download this Zune Card, and even then, it would be presented separate from my music library.  Brand sponsorship might be displayed in album art or wallpaper on the downloaded playlist that includes a small brand logo such as the image of the Zune 80 from the demo at the right.  We've had no discussions about putting ads into song tracks or the like- that would go against rule #1!  But like game and movies downloads, someone has to pay to offer the free and legitimate download. We’re finding just like at music concerts, there are plenty of brands interested in sponsorship opportunities, in this case offering free downloads in exchange for creating a positive connection with music lovers. 

As mentioned, this is a pilot launching this summer, will always be opt-in and the team will be actively soliciting your feedback.  Just like on Xbox, the goal is to put the “fun” in ad-funded downloads with Zune.  Trust is earned and there are plenty who will assume the worst- that's part of the fun (and the challenge) of my new job.