Last week, I went ahead and purchased a trial subscription to two entertainment models. I’m currently subscribed for 14 days of Microsoft’s Zune Pass subscription, and Netflix 1 at a time plus unlimited streaming subscription. I like both services a lot and the integration with the Xbox 360 is nice (although it has room for improvement). Let me give you a quick run down of both services.
Zune pass is Microsoft’s subscription model for streaming music. It costs $14.99 a month and as long as you have an active subscription you can play (on up to 3 PCs) any songs from their vast library. You can also download these songs and load them onto a DRM approved device (like the Zune) for the duration of your subscription. Along with the monthly access to the entire library, Microsoft added a new element that lets you download and keep forever, 10 songs per month. The biggest gap in this service which I didn’t realize wouldn’t work until I actually tried it, is that you cannot access the Zune Marketplace via the xbox 360 console. This means that you can’t browse and stream unlimited music directly from the xbox, a huge oversight in my opinion since most people would love to be able to select and play any music in their main entertainment room instead of just the room they have a PC in. Other than that, there are a lot of nice features about the Zune pass and Zune marketplace (social playlists and channels) that have me debating moving to a subscription based model for my music needs.
With the newest version of the Xbox 360 UI, Xbox Live Gold members and members of certain Netflix subscription plans can now access a large library of streaming content directly on their Xbox consoles. I have tried this for a few days and it is implemented very well. On the netflix website you select which movies you want to show up in your “instant queue” on the xbox, and once you navigate to the Netflix section on your console you get a nice interface that lets you play and watch the content you selected. The standard streaming quality is very acceptable and some features are available in HD which looks very nice. The best “instant queue” selections are mostly limited to Documentaries, Indie films and TV shows, but there is a large selection of almost anything you could want, and the most basic plan at $8.99 allows for you to have 1 DVD (or BluRay) out at a time to fill the gap. A couple of improvements I would like to see are allowing you to browse the entire netflix instant library via the xbox console to add films to your queue, more HD content, and also better sound on the higher quality films. It seems I am only limited to 2 channel audio, which is unfortunate.
With these two media subscriptions, Microsoft and Netflix really have a nice fulfillment of my music and movie needs. This got me thinking, with a few of the improvements I listed above (most notably the Zune Marketplace accessible on the Xbox 360 console) Microsoft could easily offer a single subscription model that would compete and go beyond anything other media service providers currently offer. Imagine if you had following options.
Xbox Media Pass Basic – 1 month xbox live gold, netflix streaming, and zune pass streaming $20/month
Xbox Media Pass Mid-range – 1 month xbox live gold, netflix streaming + 1 at a time, zune pass + 800 MS Points – $30/month
Xbox Media Pass Deluxe – 1 month xbox live gold, netflix streaming + 3 at a time, zune pass + 1600 MS Points – $50/month
The price points can be adjusted some, but you see where I’m going. I would be very VERY interested in purchasing one of these plans, and even possibly a yearly subscription if it was given at a discounted rate. The other adjustment that would have to be made according to how I have the model laid out, is that Microsoft would have to make their point system universal. 800 MS points would be good on the Xbox console or Marketplace for purchasing game or video content and good on the PC or Zune for purchasing individual tracks or whole albums. I really think if Microsoft was able to combine these services and integrate them well, they would really start to separate themselves from everyone else in both the console and media offerings marketplace.
Some of you may have noticed a new sidebar area called ‘Twitter Updates’. I could go through and try to explain what twitter is, but I’d probably end up confusing you. I’ll let this very well thought out video explain it instead:
There are quite a few of these services floating around, that will basically allow you to track your friends activity and sharing around the internet. Two others in specific that have caught my eye are FriendFeed and Pownce.
At first I was a little hesitant about what Twitter’s focus was, but after using it for a while I can see it’s benefits.
On thing I personally don’t see the appeal of is using it for personal messages back and forth between two private parties similar to IM. It’s kind of the same idea as the “Wall” on Facebook. I don’t understand the need to make private messages viewable to the general public. I guess, in some instances it’s useful if you could get additional feedback from other on-lookers, and it’s kind of like everyone hanging out in a room together, commenting on each other’s conversations (some people call twitter a combination of IRC, text messaging, and forums). Just not my flavor. But that’s the great thing about Twitter is it has multiple uses. I prefer to use it as a posting mechanism for momentary thoughts, sights or feelings that I wouldn’t want to type out in a full blog post. I like to follow close friends to see whats up, as well as some internet personalities for their links, insights, humor and just general daily discoveries. I think as soon as some non-internet celebrity joins on, Twitter will go mainstream.
On Friday night we had a party to celebrate Nick’s 23rd birthday. We invited a couple people over and ended up having a great time with our first party of the spring weather. Anyone who knows me knows I like to take pictures and document big events. I like to be able to look back and reflect on the fun times in my life and keep those memories fresh. I recently read at Lifehacker something to try to better document some of our parties. Basically the idea consists of setting up a webcam that captures an image every few seconds. Then the next day, you paste them all together in a movie and you can watch the previous night in a short time span. It gives it a very cool stop motion look to the evening. I decided Nick’s birthday party was a good trial celebration and set my webcam and laptop up in the corner of the room to record. After messing around with the video today and setting it to music, I must say I am VERY pleased with the end result.
First a quick note on the song. As soon as I saw the “look” of the video during a test run the night before I knew what song I would use if this was successful. One of my favorite songs from last year is “All Your Friends” by LCD Soundsystem. The rhythm is perfect for the type of video that was produced, and the theme of the song hits home. If you listen to or read the lyrics they might be a little confusing, but what I get from it is that later in life, looking back you’ll mostly remember the good times with your friends and not much else, even if some of the stuff you did with your friends was pretty stupid. It’s a theme that really struck a cord with me.
I wouldn’t trade one stupid decision
For another five years of lies
You drop the first ten years just as fast as you can
And the next ten people who are trying to be polite
When you’re blowing eighty-five days in the middle of France
Yeah, I know it gets tired only where are your friends tonight?
Sorry to get sidetracked on the song. Anyway, I can watch the video a few times and still notice something new that makes me smile since there is so much going on. One thing that might change if I keep doing this, is this no one knew that the camera was recording, so everything goes on unrelated to the camera. We might be able to perform some pretty cool captures if people know its recording every 4 seconds. Also we’ve talked about setting up a second one somewhere else to capture even more, but I think the placement of this one got a much as possibly ( you can even see corn hole action outside at one point). Let me know what you think in the comments.
Even if you are constantly getting charged the same ammount, it pays to double check what you’re getting charged for. I’ve always been told this is a good practice and monthly, will check the charges for my credit cards, our utilities and whatever else. Usually for bills that remain the same like Cable/Internet, if the cost doesn’t change a cent, I don’t dig into the break down of the total bill. Now I know better.
Here at the Northcrest household, we’ve been running a monthly charge of about $95 for cable and internet since we’ve lived here. Split between four people it’s not a bad deal at all (something I’ll greatly miss moving into a 2 person living situation). We pay to get a 7 MB/sec internet connection, digital cable, HD box, and additional HD channels. When we signed up we were offered HBO and Starz for no additional cost so we’ve had those as well. This month, Time Warner upped their rates to where we’re paying about $101 a month. When I saw the change in billing, I took a look at the breakdown of the bill to see what was increased. Pretty much every charge had a $1 or $2 increase. I then saw that we were being charged about 7 bucks each for HBO and Starz. This was different than our first bills where HBO and Starz did not show up except as a $0 charge. I was glad to have those extra channels, but not for that much of an increase.
I called Time Warner up this afternoon at lunch to get those costs removed. Shockingly I was on and off the phone with my whole request fulfilled in just a few minutes. Our new bill is down to just around $83 now, and they gave us a few months of Showtime free. If I had known that we were getting itemized for HBO and Starz I would have canceled those a while ago. I guess it pays to check. Meanwhile, I guess I’ll have to procure John Adams and other HBO series elsewhere for now.
Your average Internet user for chat or IM programs will use their respective protocol’s IM client. AIM for AOL Instant messenger. Windows Messenger for MSN. Gmail for Gtalk.. etc. For as long as I’ve had two separate IM protocol accounts (I think ICQ and AIM were my first two) I have always preferred using a program that combines all clients into one. First it was Trillian, which I used for probably 3-4 years, mostly during college. Next I moved onto a program called Pidgin that I’ve been using for the past year or so and still is a great piece of software. I’ve never really pushed people to switch to something like Trillian or Pidgin because people use what they are used to. But now I would fully recommend everyone try out a new program… Digsby. Digsby is like the Trillian and Pidgin in that it combines all IM protocol’s into one client, but it also has a bunch of extra features that make it so much more than anything else out there. The website describes it as IM + Email + Social Networks in one easy to use application. Some of my favorite features include:
Being able to check and perform functions in gmail or any mail account like archive, mark as read, or delete without opening the browser
Following Facebook and Twitter status in a very simple “mini-feed” layout that again is non-browser (for those of you that don’t know what Twitter is, I plan to make a post on it sometime soon)
Saving settings and account information to an online profile that you can use at multiple locations
Download Digsby and give it a try. I think it is still in beta right now, but I haven’t noticed any issues, and can’t wait for them to continue to improve it. Some of you I know just use web session IM, so this isn’t really for you, but if you have any IM program installed on your home PC or laptop that use use for any of the major Instant Message platforms, I would fully recommend you switch to Digsby for a bit and see if you don’t prefer it.
Dec 9, 2008 
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