New York Times recently ran an article suggesting that Zune users buy the Zune because they don’t want an iPod. The Slate suggests that NYT is calling this “anti-branding” a more extreme version of “counter-branding.” Basically this method of marketing positions your product opposite your competitor’s product.

This technique is used quite a bit; for instance 7-Up openly calls itself “the uncola,” marketing it as an alternative to colas. Business Week points out the more recent example of “Mamma Mia!” as the alternate choice to the blockbuster “Batman: The Dark Knight” for people who didn’t buy into the hype or just had no interest in seeing what everyone else wanted to see.

Is Microsoft positioning the Zune as the anti-iPod, and are people buying Zunes because they’re not iPods?

I'm now 5 weeks into my summer job and being in a job that allows for using an MP3 player I have been searching around for stuff to listen to the last few weeks. Music is all good and well, but when it's 6 hours a day 6 days a week you do get tired of your "favorites" playlist rather quickly.

My way of thinking has always been to happily pay for something as long as it's a reasonable fee for something I can actually use. 10 years after the first MP3 players reeked havoc in the music industry one would think that there's been some steps made in the right direction when it comes to legal content for our beloved players, but has it really or are we still more or less left to illegal downloading if we want the good stuff? Read on for a look at what's available in the realms of legal content now in 2008.

With every new player on the market there are a lot of hardware changes and new features to tempt the users. The same can not be said about user interfaces, as these are often half done and doesn't work as well as they should have. For some this is a minor annoyance, while others rely on the player to be user friendly and easy to control in different situations.

If you have a Nokia Internet Tablet, that problem has been a thing of the past for a while now. A development project called Canola done by several Brazilian tablet users has risen up from the sea of media players for the platform and provided it with perhaps the best interface I have seen on any device. Hit the jump for the full story on how the Indt development team have done what many PMP manufactures have more or less failed to do for years.

I know, I know, Zune games was on my list of 8 things I don’t want to see on the Zune, however, I have slightly warmed up to the idea. A few weeks ago I played games on the Zune for the first time and while the controls can be a bit awkward there still is some potential for some decent games especially if you are talking about more simple and “low action” games.

There are two key aspects to Zune game play that these games can focus on: Zune to Zune wi-fi and its ability to tap into your music library. With the recent firmware release games can now available to anyone though the XNA developer's kit. This would be the best time to rally behind your favorite games for the Zune. Here is a list of top 5 must have games for the Zune. What other must have games are on your list?

Since the first MP3 players came on the market there's been a constant question of what connection method the player should use. Proprietary cables have more potential, but standard USB is easier and more accessible.

For some this might mean the difference between buying a player or not while others don't care, but what is really the difference between the two? Read on for the connection cable showdown between the two.

The first MP3 player was introduced by MPMAN in 1998. It was expensive, awkward, and had 32MB of memory. 10 years later, we have flash players with 1000 times the capacity, several times the battery life, WiFi, Bluetooth, video and a mountain of other features.

Here's an extensive look back at how we got this far in the last decade, covering over 70 players sorted by release year.

Cover Flow is a nice looking interface, but it is eye candy far from a practical and useful interface. The biggest problem with Cover Flow is that the user can only view the currently selected album, the one before, and the one after (and only a fraction of the latter two). The reason why this is not useful has to do with the way we mentally process ordered lists.

Typically we view lists in words made up by letters- since the alphabet is standard and consistent, we are used to making sense of where a “G” falls in reference to the rest of the items in the list. It is an automatic mental process developed by our mastery of the alphabet and language. By contrast, Cover Flow forces us to constantly relearn our mental processes of ordering visual cues in the form of album covers. While you could argue that it is possible to learn the order of album art covers, it would take time and would be difficult since the list is dynamic.

We are all obsessed with album art and love visual interfaces, but a different approach needs to be taken in order to circumvent our natural understanding of language and ordered lists.

Let’s face it, Windows Media Player is a dog- its slow, fails to play anything outside of a few major codecs, and it fails to extend its usefulness to portable devices. Microsoft’s own Zune media player even outperforms WMP in many aspects, only failing at more of the hardcore features such as library organization and tag editing.

Ditching the WMP code and building on top of the Zune software or opening the Zune software up to all all MP3 players would be an ideal approach, but I doubt either will happen. So instead here are 3 extremely critical aspects WMP need in order to be a viable media player for the masses.

Introducing the latest and greatest feature to your favorite MP3 player site… abi>>compare is a side-by-side comparison engine that will help you select your next MP3 player. In addition to being able compare specs it will allow you to search by and filter by specs. For instance if you are looking for a flash player for between $100-$300 with a minimum of 4GB of memory and at least a QVGA screen, abi>>compare will show you everything available.

The main page, pictured on the left, features the top comparisons and players. On the right side are the filter options that will allow you to search for players with features of your choice. Pictured right is the side-by-side comparison screen. Players can be added or removed on the fly with a simple click.

There are a few hundred different players with a few hundred different features on them. Consumers are getting used to this choice. So naturally, when a new player is released, users are request companies to add the features they want. MP3 player makers include many popular ones so as to “cover all the bases” and appease as many users as possible. This is the way that anythingbutipod manufactures have tried to compete with the Apple- offer just many more features at a much lower price, while Apple offered simplicity at a premium. Both strategies are viable since there are many types of consumers.

While Apple’s strategy has worked well, they are now feeling the pressure in the market and are slowly absorbing the jack-of-all-trades approach. It is not as profound since it has been very gradual, but if you look at the history of iTunes, you will see how cluttered it has become by having to accommodate the many features added to iPods over the years. They also continue wow us with petty but impractical ones like “cover flow” as if we were a bunch of attention deficit two year olds.

Apple is on the verge of creating a void in the market where a simple media centric device once stood. This void is now being filled by the Zune, so I write this in hope that Microsoft will continue to offer the Zune as a simple media centric device and not cave to the people screaming for clocks, games, web browsers, and other add-ons. Time, energy, and recourses are better spent improving the users’ music experience.

Microsoft and MTV partnered over a year ago to provide the Urge music service on WMP and yesterday MTV announced that they would be ditching their Urge brand to will team up with Rhapsody. Now this poses a question as to what is going to happen to Windows Media Player, since Urge was its primary music provider.

Many people loved Urge and are kicking and screaming that they’re now stuck with something that comes from Real. I don’t blame them. My experience with Rhapsody software has been plagued with sluggishness, crashes, bugs, and DRM issues to name a few. Others I’ve talked to have also had major problems running Rhapsody, so I’m not alone.

For Microsoft, this could be a blessing in disguise and a chance to convene their fragmented efforts in portable media.

I disassembled the Gigabeat S series for two reasons: to see if the battery is easily replaceable and to see what kind of processor is inside. It turns out that the battery is indeed replaceable with what looks like an off the shelf Toshiba battery. It is fairly easy to get to with the removal of five small screws on the outside and two small screws on the inside. A novice with tiny Philips screw driver should not have too much difficulty replacing the battery. However I wouldn’t recommend going any further, because things get a lot more complicated…

Also check out our indepth Gigabeat S30 & S60 review.

My background is marketing and brand management so I can really appreciate a good marketing campaign or a well managed brand. One company I truly do admire when it comes to marketing and branding is Apple. They have done an amazing job creating something that everyone wants to be a part of and wants to buy into- that is the sole purpose of marketing. The reason I chose to study marketing back in school was because of this power to change the way people think; ultimately changing their buying behavior that can be observed quantitatively in the form of sales or market share. For this I commend Apple for using the power of marketing to dominate market share in the digital audio player business.

When writing the review for the Creative’s Zen Vision:M I was frustrated to find out that the audio/video cable was not a “standard” camcorder cable that you can buy at any store. Creative did not have them in stock so I made my own from a commonly found camcorder cable from the local brick and mortar store. You can do the same with the pinouts listed below but that requires splicing and soldering. If you are not into that, there are other unexpected places you can find an A/V cable for your Zen Vision:M.

This guide will show you step by step how to rip DVDs to your Creative Zen Vision:M using the correct setting to ensure proper playback. This guide uses DVD Decrypter and AutoGK which is free open source software so it will cost you nothing. The process is relatively straight forward but may take some time to encode the video depending on how fast your processor runs.

Update:The guide below gives you a lot of control for your output files but is a somewhat involved. If you are looking for less powerful but ultra easy way to rip DVDs and convert other files for your Zen Vision:M please check out iriverter. I recommend it for the novice and casual user over the guide below.