We've been busy beavers, and have updated Zune Zone big time! There are now message boards, a buyers page with prices and stock availability for major onlien stores and a running news feed from all over the world of Zune. Pay us a visit!

The Zune retailers have opened the gates and have started to accept pre-orders for Zunes and related accessories. We have created a page here which will let you see what Amazon have available. That includes all three color varieties and plenty of accessories!

Order your Zune now

Zune will be available with a number of accessories, sold in packs or individually. We haven't totted up the prices, but assume that the pack prices are cheaper than the bits added up.

Zune Home A/V Pack
The Home A/V Pack includes everything you need to amplify your Zune experience. This set of five products integrates Zune with your big-screen TV and the best speakers in your house. The wireless remote puts you in control from virtually anywhere in the room. When you buy the Zune Home AV Pack, you’ll get the AV Output Cable, Zune Dock, Zune Wireless Remote with Lithium Battery, Zune Sync Cable and Zune AC Adapter for $99.99.

Zune Travel Pack
The Travel Pack includes everything you need to travel with your Zune device in style. This set of five products is designed to keep you and your friends and family entertained while you travel. When you buy the Zune Travel Pack, you’ll get the Zune Dual Connect Remote, Zune Premium Earphones, Zune Gear Bag, Zune Sync Cable and Zune AC Adapter for $99.99.

Zune Car Pack
The Car Pack includes everything you need to hit the road with your Zune device. With AutoSeek, setup is easy, and you can enjoy your music on the go and charge at the same time. When you buy the Zune Car Pack, you’ll get the FM tuner with AutoSeek and the Zune Car Charger for $79.99.

And then there's a load of individual prices etc...

• Zune AV Output Cable $19.99
• Zune AC Adapter $29.99
• Zune Sync Cable $19.99
• Zune Car Charger $24.99
• Zune Dock $39.99
• Zune Wireless Remote for Zune Dock $29.99
• Zune Dual Connect Remote $29.99
• Zune FM tuner With AutoSeek $69.99
• Zune Gear Bag $29.99
• Zune Premium Earphones $39.99

Have fun!

It's all over the place now, but the Zune is due to be released on 14th November in the US for $249.99. You will be able to subscribe to Zune Pass, which will cost $14.99 per month and give you access to the Zune library (millions of songs they say) - but I assume that you would need to remain a subscriber... Individual tracks will cost 79 Microsoft points (99 cents).

There's now a full list of preloaded content:

Music
Band of Horses, “Wicked Gil” (Sub Pop Records)
Bitter:Sweet, “The Mating Game” (Quango Music Group)
CSS, “Alala (Microsoft edit)” (Sub Pop Records)
Darkel, “At The End of The Sky (edit)” (Astralwerks)
Every Move a Picture, “Signs of Life” (V2)
Small Sins, “Stay” (Astralwerks)
The Adored, “Tell Me Tell Me” (V2)
The Rakes, “Open Book” (V2)
The Thermals, “A Pillar of Salt” (Sub Pop Records)

Videos
30 Seconds to Mars, “The Kill” (Virgin Records)
BT, “1.618” (DTS Entertainment)
Chad VanGaalen, “Red Hot Drops” (Sub Pop Records)
Coldcut featuring Roots Manuva, “True Skool” (Ninja Tune)
CSS, “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” (Sub Pop Records)
Fruit Bats, “Live: The Wind That Blew My Heart Away” (Sub Pop Records)
Grandaddy, “Elevate Myself” (V2)
Hot Chip, “Over and Over” (Astralwerks Records)
Kraak & Smaak featuring Dez., “Keep Me Home” (Quango Music Group)
Kinski, “Live: The Snowy Parts of Scandinavia” (Sub Pop Records)
Paul Oakenfold, “Faster Kill Pussycat (Featuring Brittany Murphy)” (Maverick Records)
Serena-Maneesh, “Drain Cosmetics” (Playlouderecordings

Movies
5 Boro: “A New York Skateboarding Minute” (Skateboarding)
Radical Films: “Kranked — Progression” (Mountain Biking)
TGRTV The North Face (Skiing/Snowboarding

And a bunch of images to customise your Zune backgrounds etc.

Get in the queue!

VAF Research have announced their Zune speaker system, the Octavio, which looks mighty nice in the press shots. Could this be the first public outing of the Designed for Zune logo?

Well, I spend a day interviewing and then the press release pops out of the system:

REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 14, 2006 — Marking the next big milestone for its Connected Entertainment vision, Microsoft Corp. today unveiled details of the first products to be released under its Zune™ brand. Designed around the principles of sharing, discovery and community, Zune will create new ways for consumers to connect and share entertainment experiences. The Zune experience centers around connection — connection to your library, connection to friends, connection to community and connection to other devices.

“The digital music entertainment revolution is just beginning,” said J Allard, vice president, design and development, at Microsoft, who is leading the charge for building the family of Zune products. “With Zune, we are not simply delivering a portable device, we are introducing a new platform that helps bring artists closer to their audiences and helps people find new music and develop new social connections.”

The Zune Experience
Available this holiday season in the United States, Zune includes a 30GB digital media player, the Zune Marketplace music service and a foundation for an online community that will enable music fans to discover new music. The Zune device features wireless technology, a built-in FM tuner and a bright, 3-inch screen that allows users to not only show off music, pictures and video, but also to customize the experience with personal pictures or themes to truly make the device their own. Zune comes in three colors: black, brown and white.

Every Zune device creates an opportunity for connection. Wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing lets consumers spontaneously share full-length sample tracks of select songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures with friends between Zune devices. Listen to the full track of any song you receive up to three times over three days. If you like a song you hear and want to buy it, you can flag it right on your device and easily purchase it from the Zune Marketplace.

Zune makes it easy to find music you love — whether it’s songs in your existing library or new music from the Zune Marketplace. Easily import your existing music, pictures and videos in many popular formats and browse millions of songs on Zune Marketplace, where you can choose to purchase tracks individually or to buy a Zune Pass subscription to download as many songs as you want for a flat fee.

To get started with great music and videos out of the box, every Zune device is preloaded with content from record labels such as DTS, EMI Music’s Astralwerks Records and Virgin Records, Ninja Tune, Playlouderecordings, Quango Music Group, Sub Pop Records, and V2/Artemis Records.

Zune Accessories
To enhance the Zune experience, three accessory packs help Zune users enjoy their music where they want to, at home or on the road. The packs and the individual accessories, all designed exclusively for Zune, will be available at launch:

• The Zune Car Pack includes everything needed to hit the road with a Zune device, such as the built-in FM tuner with AutoSeek and the Zune Car Charger.

• The Zune Home A/V Pack enhances your experience in the home through five products that integrate Zune with the TV and music speakers: Zune AV Output Cable, Zune Dock, Zune Sync Cable, Zune AC Adapter and the Zune Wireless Remote for Zune Dock.

• Zune Travel Pack is a set of five products designed to keep friends and family entertained on the road: Zune Premium Earphones, Zune Dual Connect Remote, Zune Gear Bag, Zune Sync Cable and the Zune AC Adapter.


Providing consumers with additional options to customize and personalize their Zune experience, Microsoft is also working with leading accessory manufacturers Altec Lansing, Belkin Corp., Digital Lifestyle Outfitters (DLO), Dual Electronics, Griffin Technology, Harman Kardon and JBL, Integrated Mobile Electronics, Jamo International, Klipsch Audio Technologies, Logitech, Monster Cable Products Inc., Speck, Targus Group International Inc. and VAF Research

The Future is Bright
In addition to the features available at launch, built-in wireless technology and powerful software provide a strong foundation to continue to build new shared experiences around music and video. As Zune evolves, the device can be easily updated. The Zune software on your PC will let you know when these updates are available for download.

We'll analyse this later, but thught you might want to see the blurb itself....

The Gadgets Weblog raises some interesting points in a recent post. The crux is which record promoter will arm a bunch of people with Zunes loaded with promo tracks and send them out on Zune DJ mode, and when it will happen.

Send a bunch of carriers to dense urban areas: airports, train stations, university campuses etc. and just let people discover the tracks. Cheap and effective promotion.

But take it a step further; we don't know the full details of DJ mode, but will it work with user-created non-DRM content? Will we see "Zune parties" in public areas taking over from the likes of MySpace for amateur musician promotion? Will we see Zune broadcasting used for political reasons? Likewise, can you imagine a whole slew of Linux-heads wandering around Seattle broadcasting pro-Linux propaganda? Can individual Zunes be traced easily?

There could be some very interesting scenarios here, and gives underground/viral promotion a new target to aim for.

Artist Robin Troy is to be the Production Manager for images that will ship with Zune. Robin works on both human figures and abstract - so no real clue as to the Zune direction just yet, but anyone who counts Blazing Saddles, The Matrix and Young Frankenstein in their fave movie list can't be bad :-)

More on Robin here.

The peeps over at Madison and Pine have let know of some further content that will ship with the Zune: Norwegian band Serena Maneesh.