Great stuff as always. How'd you get your start?

I really don't understand this New Music Friday thing, is it just letting people know what you like or is it actually free music? Sorry I come here a lot and usually just don't pay attention to this post every Friday, but would like to know what it's all about.

Adam - it all started way back in college, I started volunteering with KEXP (at that time it was called KCMU).

Joe - yep. here's how it works: each Friday, I find music in MP3 blogs, and post links to my favorites. You, in turn, click through to the post, and load up your Zune (or brand X player) with the free music.

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yeah...if I keep doing this my Zune will be full of random music without any meaning...I still prefers Albums instead of singles and tracks..

Anyway..nice weekend. LAter

Cesar, the link for Brooklyn Vegan doesn't appear to be working. It seems to be trying to load something from a zuneinsider internal site. thanks for the tracks, though :-)

Hey Cesar, just wanted to point out that at the Tech Specs Zune site, there is a menu on the left with some links; one of the items does not have any link code. You might want to let the guys running the site know. (http://www.zune.net/en-us/meetzune/techspecs/player.htm) It's the "Shop Now for Zune"

I like NMF's...keep em comin. what never have listened to these artists otherwise.

Sorry if this is in the wrong post. but i have a problem with my latest firmware update. It's suppose to perform more random selection of music on a playlist right. but after the update my playlist is now more predictiable than ever infact. if i play a playlist right from the top and turn on shuffle i can tell you which song is comming up next and it just keeps repeating. even after i have powered it off. this firmware update has made my music more predictable and now i am looking for  a way to roll back. if you want me to post a video or anything just rply back on the boards and i will do it asap.

thanks for listening..

Ahh, right. It might help if I had read the "about admin" section right below this box.

Did you do anything music-related in high school? At what point did you start to consider a job in the industry?

I made a quick video of my zune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kijg_vwYM7M

this is the first time i really took the time and went through the links.. i'm liking it all, thanks a lot Cesar.

Hey Cesar - couple of things:

1) It's Woomble, rather than Wamble, the Idlewild singer

2) I'd love for you to check out the music blog I write with some other people for possible inclusion in more new music fridays. You can find it at http://www.whoneedsradio.com :)

I listened to the Maximo Park album on MSN the other day. It's a nice touch of UK rock. The lead singer reminds me of Malcolm McDowell from Clockwork Orange... maybe it's the hat.

And it's interesting hearing Justice remix Daft Punk, since he's filling the Daft Punk void in my heart until their new album drops.

Thanks, as always! NMF is far more welcomed in my world than news about Paris Hilton!  ;)

must... expose... ears... to... new... music!

seriously... this is why I'm picking up a Zune next week. I've already got my "NMF 26" playlist loaded up on the Zune software on my PC... can't wait to load it onto the player.

really nice variety

Hey, Duncan: Really nice blog you have there!

i choose the trax i like (and load them on my zune) and delete the the ones i dont like. btw, really enjoyed the spanish ochestra freebie on ZMP.

oh and before I forget, when r we gonna see podcast support?

Cesar: I started using the shuffle recently and noticed something which I find mildly annoying about it that maybe could go in a future update? If you have shuffle on and choose a song, it will shuffle the entire playlist the song's in and then play that song (obviously starting from a random spot on the list) A lot of time I do this cause I want to hear a certain song first but have the rest shuffled. I think it would make a lot more sense to put the song you want played first in the list and shuffle the rest and put em after it.

Mark: I haven't noticed that in any of the ways I've started shuffle (and shuffle is pretty much perpetually on on my completely filled Zune). I wonder what's wrong with your copy...?

I just tried it from about a zillion different ways. The only thing I can think of is if you pressed the play button (while music is paused) over a playlist, artist, genre, album, etc., in which case it would default to the "play from anywhere in the list" mode. If you select a song while in random mode, it should play that song first....

Ohhh!!!! (cross that out) are you saying you think that when you select a song while in shuffle mode, (and then press the center button to bring up the menu), at the top it says "#### of #####", sort of starting in the middle of the playlist? The playlists are cyclical, so it should be fairly random, and you can always go back to "track 1". When you play from the "shuffle all" mode, it puts the selected track as "1 of ###". So yeah, that was a wasted post...

ya, the song I choose plays first but it is still randomly placed in the list so, on average, (unless I select repeat), I only get half the playlist.

Cesar, I hope you guys are planning to have some sort of answer to the iPhone hype.  My wish list (in order)...

June07 (Theme: A Very Attractive Proposition)

1. Price Cut..get price of Current Zune PMP down to $179

2. Movie/TV/Misc Video content

3. Add Podcasting Support

Sept07 (Theme: Ultra Mobile and Affordable)

4. Flash Based Zune

5. Windows Mobile Zune Software

Nov07 (Theme: 2.0)

5. Zune 2.0 hardware and software

Is this at all realistic?  I figure your dev team has been working on something behind closed doors.  Please Please work with Media Center team too..the way things look from here you folks are working in a silo..not colloborating enough.  Prove me wrong.  I hope we can agree that Media Center, Xbox/Pika (v2 Extenders), Zune and Media Player need to work to together far better than they do today.

Thanks

off topic*

Apple is requiring users to have an iTunes account for the iPhone. If the iPhone takes off like the iPod did and sells like crazy, that means many more millions of iTunes being installed on desktops. Can't be good for Market Place. More exclusives, more media plugs, more movie studio deals, more iTunes U, and many more PODCAST. Where is the answer? Not a phone, but a Zune with usable wifi, PODCAST, movies, shows...

kansas reader! that's a great band too! go see them live!