So here's the deal. I didn't get a lot of feedback on the CES meet-up (I think 3 people replied). Plus, no one has sent me a single picture of the swag I sent them from the last contest (you know who you are). So, I'm hesitant to run another contest. However, the team is having a small private get together at CES (this is not an official MS thing, just the Zune accessories team). Want to meet the team? Here's what you have to do...

I need either of two things. First, a really great (and I mean great) tip/trick that I can repost on the site. Something really cool that hasn't been posted before. I'm thinking of things like hacking accessories to work with Zune or getting content on the device (legally). Second, if you don't have a tip or trick, tell me why you want to meet the team. No pandering and nothing like, "it would be really cool to meet you." Give me a good reason. Something like you want to interview the team for your blog. There will be rules about what you can and can't post (don't say you weren't warned). But, if the reason is good enough, we'll send an invite. Just to set your expectations, though, I'm guessing we won't invite more than two people. So make it good.

Who got a new Zune for Christmas? What was it, the 4, 8, 30, or 80? Have you tried out Marketplace yet? What do you think? Anyone get any cool accessories? I got a DLO action jacket (but it was the generic one).

I know it has been kind of quiet again. Part of it is the traditional Holiday rush. But, part of it was that I was in Asia. Yep, I'm already working on V3 and, unfortunately, it means that I had to spend part of the December break overseas. While I can't give away too much, I spent time working on both devices and next gen accessories. I'll try to keep this updated, but with CES fast approaching, who knows.

Well. it is that time of the year again.  We're deep into CES planning.  The last couple of years I tried to have a get-together, but without much luck.  however, I thought I'd give it one more shot.  Anyone planning on being at CES?  Anyone interested in a meet-up?  If we get a critical mass, I'll plan something.

It has been awhile since I tried WLW.  Last time I really liked the product, but had a few issues with the editing/formatting.  On a whim, I thought I'd give it another shot.  The team seems to have improved the polish of the product quite a bit.  It is not terribly different, but it is much easier to use in the little things.  I especially like the integration with Blogger.  Good work guys!

By now, there should be a few of the new accessories hitting the shelves. As much as I'd like to divulge the exact products, I'm not allowed to until they become public due to NDAs. However, I can say that you should be seeing a ton of new cases and some new speaker docks to name a few. I'm wondering if anyone has seen them (so I can talk a little more about them) or even purchased some.

I know there are some specials going on on the Zune products today. I was hoping that you guys could share what you seen (and hopefully have taken advantage of). Let us know location, store and price.

Much has been said this week about the 80. Did we make enough or did we not make enough? Are they in store or are they not in stores? Cesar posted about his talks with the PMs this week. Here's what I know. There are 80s to be had. We just picked up three today. I've visited several Targets and seen several there. Incidentally, I saw a guy buy 5 Zune 8s today at Target in Issaquah. If you happen to be that guy and are reading this blog, I'll gladly send you a case! Back to the topic at hand. There are devices available and Cesar says we are making more (which is a good problem to have if you ask me).

I noticed that some folks started to embed their ZuneTags into their websites. I wanted to see how easy it was to do. It turns out it is pretty easy. Use this snippit and replace your personal info and preferences with the ones highlighted in RED. Replace (bracket) with <> respectively.

(bracket)div id="zunecard_big" class="zunecard"(bracket)

(bracket)embed
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://social.zune.net//xweb/lx/swf/zunecard.swf?ver=1192"
style="" id="flashUserCard" name="flashUserCard" bgcolor="#FFF" wmode="opaque"
salign="tl"
flashvars="baseURL=http%3a%2f%2fsocial.zune.net%2fzcard%2fusercardservice.ashx%3fzunetag%3dbillwitt27%26src%3dlarge&MMplayerType=PlugIn"
height="140" width="204"(bracket)

(bracket)/div(bracket)

I made mine pretty small to fit into the template. You could make it much larger.

I've talked about MoodLogic before. In many ways, it is the precursor to things like Pandora. It was created by a very smart guy who used user data to collect information about songs that is much deeper than what is available from CDDB, AMG, etc (ironically, his company was acquired by one of the others, but that is a different story). I was building a few playlists because it is time to hit the gym after gaining a few pounds in the pre-launch run-up. I remembered how good ML was and decided to see if anything had been changed. It turns out, they have released a new version (v2). I don't know when they did it, but one of the new features is that is it free for you for first 10,000 songs. That is very cool. I'm busy building new playlists as we speak. Just curious, do you guys have any tools for building contextual playlists that I don't know about?