Ok, I want to start off by apologizing for being out of service since last Saturday. Over the weekend, The Planet, which is our hosting company, had an explosion that knocked out power to the data center that we use. Monday morning power was restored. Unfortunately, we still had issues. 1st it was internal networking problems with their name servers. We finally got a tech support person to dig deep and he was able to find that their was a problem in our revolvers config. That and we were getting slammed by bots at the same time made for 4-10 minute page loads. It was a weird problem and I am very happen that we finally got it fixed.

I want to thank everyone for the emails, tweets, posts, etc in support of this issue. Thanks to Julie for updating twitter with the status. It was a very low time for me and I was very frustrated. I took being up 99.8% of the time for granted. I am so happy to have our collective voice back.

Another issue that was brought up with all this is ads on the site. There were some ads that expanded over the content that were implemented shortly before we went down. Those have been removed too. I have requested that our new ad agency not serve those type ads on our site. Sorry for the inconvenience.

As always, I will refund each one of the readers their monthly fees for viewing this site to make up for the downtime. Wait, it's free... nevermind. We have some catching up to do everyone. I'll get on that tommorow. I am very tired.

Continuing with the 2-cent suggestions, here are ways to improve and expand "The Social".  This is one area the Zune markets itself above the rest as other portable media players do not have social sharing aspects to them.  The current Social is a great start, but there are definite areas to improve upon.

2 CENT SUGGESTIONS - ZUNE SOCIAL

• Drop the 3 plays limit and DRM on non-DRM Files.  There should not be any DRM on unprotected audio files I have on my device which I want to share with other Zune users.  Not everyone is a music pirate and not everything shared is under copyright.  If it was a purchased DRM song, then I can understand keeping the DRM limits on it, but other than that, drop the DRM and limits on shared media.
• Podcasts displayed on Zune Tag.  A great feature of The Social is showing what you are listening to on your Zune Tag.  Why can't the podcasts I listen to show up on my Zune tag?  It would be great if a user could click on the podcast I recently listened to on the Zune Tag, in which they can directly listen, watch or subscribe to the podcast.
• New ways to discover new music.  Many of us want to discover new music.  Pre-populating your friends list with people who have "similar" music tastes as your own is a good place to start as not everyone is walking down the street with a Zune just yet, but I feel more friends could be pre-populated based on your listening preferences.  With the 2.5 update, one friend was added to my friends list with dissimilar musical tastes.  Sites such as eMusic.com and Netflix.com show users with similar tastes to yours and suggest new media for you.  Possibly have music suggestions based on the styles you listen to, much the way Pandora.com does, and even have clips of the songs downloaded to the Zune so you can listen to them while on the go.
• Video Sharing.  I want to be able to share a video just as I can share audio and pictures.  Sending a video over Wi-Fi is currently not possible.
• Shared files are transferred to the computer at sync time.  Someone just shared you a great song or picture of a friend's recent engagement; wouldn't it be nice to have it transferred back to your computer the next time you sync your Zune at home?
• Share within the Zune software.  Wouldn't it be great to be able to share media directly via the Zune software or Zune.net just by right-clicking a media file and sharing it with a friend?

Any other ways to improve The Social?

Over at Zune Insider, Cesar lets us know that over the next few weeks the video portion of the Zune Marketplace will be expanding by 50%, adding 400 new shows, including ones from the USA network (hooray Monk!).  He also says that eventually they'll be bringing Bravo Network hotness to the marketplace as well (hooray Top Chef!). 

Here's a full list of all the shows set to drop over the next few weeks (the first two have me especially hyped):

Wednesday, May 28: COMEDY CENTRAL

o    “The Colbert Report”

o    “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”

Friday, May 30: NBC Universal

o    “Friday Night Lights”

o    “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”

o    “Law & Order”

o    “Life”

o    “Lipstick Jungle”

o    “Saturday Night Live”

Tuesday, June 3: SCI FI Channel

o    “Battlestar Galactica Classics”

o    “Destination Truth”

o    “Ghost Hunters International”

o    “Ghost Hunters”

o    “Who Wants to Be a Superhero?”

Friday, June 6: USA Network

o    “Dr. Steve-O”

o    “In Plain Sight”

o    “Law & Order: Criminal Intent”

o    “Monk”

o    “Psych”

o    “The Starter Wife”

Zuneboards has finally released ZuneTV! A zune-friendly video download section of their site.

We've hinted at an upcoming project a few times earlier. We've asked for donations to help with the development costs. Well, after almost 4 months since the announcement, we are proud to launch ZuneTV.
ZuneTV is a YouTube-like site specialized for Zuners. All content uploaded are automatically converted into a Zune-friendly .wmv format, that is readily available for download to members. To start off, we have already uploaded a few hundred videos, but the rest is up to you. Have a video you love? Think something is so absolutely hilarious that you must share? You've come to the right place. ZuneTV's success is dependent on you, the member.
To get started, you'll first need a ZuneBoards account. For support and suggestions, we have set up a forum for that here.

Without further ado, say hello to ZuneTV. 

 

So, if your looking to load up your zune with some vidoes, or just browse video's, it's a pretty fun and easy method.

Many people have been happily enjoying the current zune game lineup, created by users themselves, but finally the Zune XNA team has taken it upon themselves to release a game. And the title they released is.... Alien Game! Many people may have seen this game in one of the CTP demonstration video's, but here it is to play.

Check out our first Mini Game for Zune, Alien Game. In Alien Game, you control a tank with the sole purpose of defending the earth from an alien invasion! It's a simple yet addictive game that is both fun and educational.

Alien Game has several features that you can learn about and integrate into your game such as:

• Media Integration, which enables you to start songs directly from the game!
• Support for both Zune input types (Zune Pad and Dpad)
• Menu and state management system

From the article over at XNA

Click here to download!

The XNA 3.0 CTP release was just 7 days ago, but already some cool applications are being created. The focal point of this release is of course gaming, but developers have also focused on making some simple, but useful applications for zune devices. Sure, zune gaming is fun, but it opens up many opportunity's when developers do not limit themselves to programs only for the purpose of entertainment. As of now, there are just a few simple applications(being that the release was just a week ago), and these include a clock, a calculator, and a simple calendar. Overall, it's great to see people taking it into their own hands to create applications that the zune does not ship with. As time goes on hopefully we shall see some more complex, and handy applications.

Clock

This is a slightly newer(Beta .5) version of the previously mentioned clock, created by TipTup over at zuneboards.

Calculator

This simple calculator was developed by Nurta at zuneboards, and although still in beta stages, is alright if you just need to complete some simple problems.

Calendar

This is a fully functioning calendar, with the one drawback being you cannot currently edit/add info to specific days. However, this has only been out for about 2 days now, so this is subject to change, just like the other applications.

Does anyone have any experience with a Wiki? I don't, but I decided to add a Wiki for a couple of my sites at the request of one of my staff members. The problem is, I haven't a clue on how to manage a Wiki. As I am told, it's a community effort, but how do you police spammers and vandals?

The Gotzune.com ZUNE WIKI is online, but I haven't done anything yet. Anyone have any direction for me?

http://www.gotzune.com/wiki

I know this is something that would be a great asset to all and I'd like to get rolling on it soon.

Well, I can't say I didn't see this one coming. TipTup300(A ZuneBoards Programmer) already has a beta release of a zune clock out. If you have games set up on your zune, and you've been wanting a clock , check it out over at ZuneBoards. Granted, you do have to access it through games menu, but at least it's a start for  a zune clock.

As you know, the CPT release of XNA 3.0 is out, and free to download. The problem is, of course, finding games. For anyone looking to play games on there zune, here are a few helpful links:

Software

Windows Visual C# 2008 Express

XNA 3.0

Games

Alien Aggressor

Galactic Wars 3

Rock Rain

XNATetris

Collapse

Pong

Clock

MatchEm

Sir Tet(New version of tetris, very well made)

Pong 2

Breakout

Marblets

So, here's what I've found so far. If anyone finds any other games, please share!

So, tommorow you can try it all out, but just off reading all this info pouring in about tommorow's launch, what do you think? Come on, Gapless... Autoplaylists, cool features for the Social... you have to have some opinions, right?

I'll share more about my feelings tommorow after I get to see it on MY PC live.