Cesar Menendez over at Zuneinsider has just announced a new audio and video podcast that is available in the marketplace for free. Here are the details:

Podcasting guru Rob Greenlee and I will be producing a weekly audio and video podcast, where we’ll cover everything Zune: software, devices, cool content in marketplace, accessories, events and more. Have a listen to the first episode by subscribing in Zune Marketplace, or you can just download the MP3 from here.

Here is the direct RSS feed link: http://zuneinsider.feeds.zune.net/rss

And of course, here's the deeplink to Zune Marketplace:

If you have ideas for topics to cover, or people to talk to, whether in the blog or in the podcast, drop a comment!

I already listened to the first episode, which is more an introduction to the podcaster's, and what the podcast will be, but it's good stuff. I'm excited to see what this podcast will bring, and I think it definitely has some potential.

Jessica at Zune Insider is soliciting feedback on the Award system. I don't even know if I have any badges. You know why? Cause I don't need no stinking badges, but you might. Take a moment to answer the poll to help Jessica out.

As I look to expand the system, I’m considering a number of things.

Should there be a maximum number of available badges? Or should we create badges as ideas occur to us, constantly expanding the ecosystem?

Should there be other rewards that go along with badges? Maybe we could get an artist to provide a special download to everyone who has earned a Gold Power Listener badge for that artist. Would that be cool?

Are we going to try to change users’ behavior, or just reflect it? If we try to change it, in what ways are appropriate to maintain a healthy community, and will users try to game the system to get a badge or reward?

Thanks. Head over to Zune Insider too.

www.DarkZune.com joins the celebration as it, like Zunited(even if it is just 1/2 year) and Zunerama,  is celebrating it's anniversary. To celebrate they're first full year many contests/giveaway's have been put into action, and more will come soon.  So head over to the DarkZune forums to take a chance at scoring one of numerous zune 4/8 cases, or download newly added sets of wallpapers for your zune.

However, they're anniversary is not the only big news. DarkZune has announced their work on an all new pokemon game for zune. Even though this may not interest the older generations, this could be big for the younger zuners. Pokemon is quite popular, and if this game is completed, and released, it could draw quite a few people to zune.  This is not in fact a remake of any previous game, the staff makes it clear that it's an all new game. What we've seen so far looks promising, just hope they can keep up the work to get this would be massive XNA project completed.

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That's it, just letting you know that we now have a twitter account for gotzune so you can follow us there if you are a twitterer. This is an automatic feed, there is no human interaction. It's just another way to get Got Zune notifications. If you want to talk on twitter to a live person, you can add me.

Oh, you can also add Mobilitysite too.

... at least according to Jasmine France in her recent article, "Best MP3 players for podcasts"

This article highlighted the pro's and some con's, of different MP3 players and their podcasts. The Microsoft Zune was proudly positioned as #1, followed closely by the Ipod Touch in the #2 position. This is the blurb about zune podcast support taken from the article:

Microsoft Zune: A fantastic podcast option, the Zune even ekes past the iPod for the top spot. The software is excellent for podcasts: You can manage how many episodes you want to sync to your device on a subscription-by-subscription level, meaning you can update three episodes of Buzz Out Loud, but only one of MP3 Insider and so on. You can also unsubscribe from podcasts directly from the player, and there's an option to wirelessly sync new podcasts when you charge your player at night. The Zune also offers accelerated fast forwarding and passive bookmarking to automatically remember your spot in each podcast.

Zune clearly does excel with podcast support, but their is still room for improvement, and many other aspects Microsoft needs to put more emphasize on to get a stronger foothold in the MP3 industry. Always glad to see zune on top though(at least at Cnet).

I have been bragging and going on about how much I love my new Zune Originals.  I even bought a Griffin clear hard case at Target that I wanted to share as well. So it is unfortunate that I have decided to send it in for repair/replacement.  I may not even get back my Red, substituting for a black. Call me petty but when I spend more than $100 on an item I want it to at least meet some quality standards when it reaches my hands or home.  

After spending much time looking closely at my Zune I noticed a few issues that opened up to a few more issues.  It's sad how we continuously have quality issues with products from China.  I at one point believed China was trying to kill us slowly with the amount of lead products, razor blades in candy, paint in toys that metabolizes in the stomach as GHB (a.k.a date rape drug), and now my precious Zune.

I have read many times about dead pixels and dust under the screen.  I have found dust under the glass, scratches from taking it apart and a broken tab on the case (all of this due to them taking it apart to perform the custom engraving.)  See the pictures after the break.

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As many of you may know, the Joy Division is on the brink of it's June 17th release, and as you can see in the picture below, it does feature a black back. Now, for any of you who read one of my past posts about black backed zune's, it becomes apparent that this Joy Division was the Zune 80 pictured.

However, the zune 80 was not the only zune with different color. Also found by Zunited, was a red flash zune, with not only a black back, but a black touch pad as well. Does this mean a new limited edition zune coming in the near future?  It sure would be nice to see.

Microsoft is running a promotion where if you try MSN Mobile, you will have a chance to win a Zune.  I have used MSN Mobile and it is pretty good.  Check their site for details, and best of luck scoring a free Zune!

http://www.msnmobilefix.com/zune/

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.