If just counting down to the Zune's arrival isn't enough for you, you can now pre-order the upcoming Microsoft MP3 player on EBGames' website. Word of warning: if they handle these pre-orders as well as they handled Xbox 360 pre-orders last year you may be waiting until after MacWorld (where they launch the next-gen iPod) to get your Zune. – Jason Chen
Preorder Page [EBGames via Zunedose]

Steven Levy didn't just find out how to meet women using iPods. He writes an article comparing the Zune vs. iPod battle as one that'll be sorted only after 5 years, much like J Allard's Xbox and its stand against Sony's Playstation 2. Clearly, that battle has been going well for J, against all odds. So who knows what we'll be listening to by 2011.
The fight is in some way about video vs music in portable players. J Allard's Zune has a bigger screen, and he's told us personally that the Zune is heavily video focused. Meanwhile, Steve makes it very clear that...
the games, video, podcasts, and audiobooks are only tangential:it's hard to imagine that music is not the epicenter of the iPod, for a long, long, long, long, long time. I was very lucky to grow up in a time when music really mattered. It wasn't just something in the background; It really changed the world. I think that music faded in importance for a while. Music is so deep within all of us, but it's easy to go fo...

For $239.99 -- $10 below the list price.
That's close to the Zune discount Microsoft is giving employees at the company store. An anonymous commenter at Mini-Microsoft grumbled that they're getting only 10 percent off, meaning employees will pay $225.

Costco's taking orders but it's not delivering them early though -- it says they'll ship Nov. 14.

Steven Levy, the Newsweek tech reporter has the kind of inside access at Apple worth Walt Mossberg's weight in gold. Check out this locker room talk about the size of Zune's "social neworking" je-ne-sais-quoi from his Q&A with Steve Jobs.
Levy: Microsoft has announced its new iPod competitor, Zune. It says that this device is all about building communities. Are you worried?
Jobs: In a word, no. I've seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear.
That kind of crass, unprotected earbud action, first documented by Wired's Leander Kahney, is fast and raw. But the Zune's wireless, sterile, faceless interaction seems like an easier way to play grab ass with a stranger's playlists without the awkward social interaction...

No big news to write home about, but none the less this is a Zune site. A keen eyed ZuneInfo.com user ( saran81kid1 ) spotted some Zune banner adds on the MTV web site a few days ago. These adds were to coincide with the updated viral marketing site, ComingZune.com which the adds link to. Thanks [...]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Wireless
Any wild guesses as to which big tech exec isn't a fan of the new Zune? If you guessed Steve Jobs, you'd be completely correct; in a recent interview with Newsweek's Steven Levy, Herr Jobs says that he's not at all worried about the Zune. "I've seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable," argues His Steveness. You make a good point, Steve, but we've heard you sing this tune before, like when the original Mac didn't have networking capabilities and you basically told people to resort to sneakernet -- of course, eventually Macs were able to connect with one another. So, we'll agree with you that the wireless capabilities...

The Microsoft viral marketing site for the Zune, ComingZune.com has had an update with a few more flashy werid and interesting things to look at. Enough from us, go check it out - www.comingzune.com Your Google Adsense code should be here, but you forgot to edit the plugins/adsense.php file and replace the code there with your own.

There has been some articles going around the Zune world about a possible Zune launch on the 15th of December for Europe. Just to set the record straight for every one, these rumors are false. We have talked to a Microsoft employee and they confirmed that this date is nothing but a made up rumor [...]

Did you have the Y2K countdown on your computer, or maybe the Mary-Kate & Ashley turning 18 timer? Are you sad that the Apocalypse hasn't happened and that teenage girls aren't as oversexed as they used to be?
Maybe it's time to download the Zune countdown clock. Because new gadgets are way hotter than overexposed ribcages. – Mark Wilson
Zune Countdown [windows live gallery]

Filed under: Announcements, Home Entertainment
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