Jun 19, 2008
by Jessica Zahn at 6:44 PM

Before I worked on Zune, I worked on Windows Media Center - specifically, on TV signal setup and recording. Media Center has a really active community (not run by Microsoft) called The Green Button, and working with those folks over there, we started a forum called "Ask Jessica," where Media Center users could ask me questions about TV features.

One of my fave things about working at Microsoft is being able to move around the company to different projects. When I was ready to move on from Media Center, I wanted to continue my work in the user community. I also knew that I had to continue working on a consumer product.

Zune was the "duh!" choice, right. But one of the things Chad, my manager here at Zune, asked when I said I was interested was, "So how are you going to take community involvement to the next level here?"

Answering users' questions: of course. Blogging: sure. But how about this: how about design a feature out in the open? Where anyone can contribute and shape what we do?

Pretty radical for Microsoft, I've got to say.

So over in the forums, I started out with a notion. Let's design some kind of fun activity for The Social. Going back and forth for a few weeks with some users produced the idea of a music trivia game, where users can contribute their own questions. They could write questions for general trivia, or they could write "get-to-know-me" questions, like "What artist headlined the concert at which I met my husband?" (Nope, not telling. If you leave a comment and guess correctly, I'll figure out something cool to do for you.)

It took me longer than expected to write the functional specification for the thing; I had to work it in among other responsibilities, and it's out of sync with the rest of our release cycle. Honestly, I'm learning as I'm going. I've never done something like this before, where my actual work is out there for anybody to see and criticize.

And it's been kind of weird, frankly: before I posted the spec, people were eager to see it. But now that it's available, I haven't gotten any comments.

So I don't know if this experiment will be successful; I think success will be creating a small, core group of users who give great feedback and shape this music trivia game. If you want to be part of that, head over to Jethereal's Zune Blog and check out the spec; then hit up my forum and tell me what you think.

9 Comments
Comments

Great to see you here Jessica. We miss you over at the Green Button. No one seems to have taken up your role over there since you left. :-(

I'm going to look into this Social Quiz project, but I think if you really want the social to really kick off in real life, you're going to have to make people want to keep their wireless on during the day. A simple way to do this is if people heard alerts when a fellow zuner gets in range. Another audio alert is sounded when a fellow zuner attempts to send (squirt) you something. Right now, if you are listening to your zune and you have your zune in your pocket, you'll have no clue that you passed 5 other zuners and one of them attempted to send you something.

If the Zune alerted you with audible alerts, then people would more likely participate in the Social in real life and not just thru the computer.

jaxim thats a good idea. i also hate the fact that when other zunes are around me there is noone to notice me. i will definitly look at this social quiz as well. cant wait to see how this social will evolve in the years to come!

Jessica - if Jaxim is involved with the social feature you're developing, it's a guaranteed winner. :)

I like Jaxim's idea, but quite honestly it would annoy the heck out of me to have an audible alert while I am listening to my music or podcasts or videos. This would be especially true as there are at least 10 people on my floor at work with Zunes.

I wouldn't want to hear a whole bunch of pings, dings, bongs, or what-have-you sounds interrupting what I am listening to.

With that said, I would be more than willing to try out something like that on my Zune, as long as I have the ability to turn it off without turning off the wireless.

Just as a side note - Jessica, a Blogger account? Working for MS, wouldn't it be better to have a Live account or something?  Just wondering! :-)

Should the wireless ping feature ever go live, an idea I had would be to only alert you when zuners you haven't yet ever interacted with are newly in range. That way, people you see on a daily basis won't be driving you mad with bells and chimes, and the audio alerts will still be useful.

Had a comment for your trivia game post but couldn't post it because posting is limited to team members :(

In my humble opinion, a recommendation system would be great, If i like a song in my collection i should be able to either flag it as recommended in the Zune or in the software... My friends get notified and so does a community board.

This helps the social along as well as drive revenue, as an option to buy the recommendation from the zune store would be included.

what does everyone else have to say on this idea?

http://social.zune.net/member/Pradster13

Well for the Zune social features, i think they should add a capability to connect to another zune and listen to exactly what they are listening to. Then it's like having a head phone splitter without the need of a splitter.

With that feature it is also needed to have a way to switch from the host of the music to the listener, so that if your friend says, "Check out this song" then you can instantly switch over and listen with him.

Maybe do that by when the listener is browsing through his own collection and when he goes to a song, there will be a play button, and there will be a "play with friends" button. Then when the listener clicks "Play with friends" the original host will be asked if he wants to listen, and the connection would be made. This would just make the whole Zune device social way more enjoyable and a lot easier to share all of your songs without having to wait for it to completely send, since streaming is a lot faster and more instant.

Just think about it, and keep up the good work!

So long as we're talking about the social and audio pings and such, how about this idea... (now I haven't had occasion, as yet, to share a song wirelessly - but i'm sure the day's coming)... it would be great if you could cue up a song or two to be shared automatically(along with your zune card) with all other users you might happen to come into range with while you're out and about. Likewise, it would be great if you could set your own device to automatically accept those songs that have been set for automatic sharing.  You might come home from a walk, or from sitting at a local coffee shop and then, when you check your Zune, you find you've picked up a bunch of songs (and zune cards) just through the random comings and goings of people - it would be like a music-sharing driftnet and I think it would be very cool to check your Zune Social Driftnet to see what sort of random music (or podcasts) you picked up in your travels and day-to-day life (it would almost be like you're sharing the thoughts and moods of people around you - even if you haven't even come into actual contact with those people) - if you like the music/podcasts you picked up, you might look up the zune card of the person you received it from and add them as a friend.  

Of course, as I understand it, sharing songs currently involves an interruption to the music you're playing and so it would have to possible for songs to be shared in the background without interrupting your listening or requiring that you take any action to complete the transaction.

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