Microsoft Extending Marketing To Concerts, Social Events

Microsoft's Zune hard drive digital music player has retained its No. 2 market share position in the post-holiday sales period, according to research firm NPD Group, with a 9.9% share.

Maintaining this toehold in the market hasn't been a steady course. Zune has suffered considerable backlash from dissatisfied consumers reporting technological glitches such as cracked LCD screens, apparently the result of battery pressure as well as direct impact. Some tech bloggers have reported sending their Zunes back to Microsoft for repairs only to have the screens crack again within weeks.

But that problem pales in scale to the "skipping" issue reported in playback of songs downloaded from the Zune Marketplace that has become so widespread that Microsoft will release yet another update to address it in mid-March--Zune Firmware Update 1.3. Apparently, the previous one didn't do the trick. Despite the playback issue, Microsoft reported that the active subscriber base of Zune Marketplace grew by 60% in January, and individual track downloads are up by 65%.

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Yet none of these issues is earth-shattering, especially not for a first-generation product. Microsoft certainly isn't daunted, saying that it's committed to expanding the Zune offering and is sticking to its predictions of selling 1 million devices by June.

Rumor has it the next-generation Zune will appear in August, but in the meantime, Microsoft is showing its commitment to Zune by expanding on its $100 million marketing efforts via concerts and social events. Messages are based on the idea of "the social," which highlights the social networking capability enabled by Zune's wireless technology.

The big focus is on discovering new music and the support of emerging artists, from the promotion of critically acclaimed acts at small clubs to a high-profile presence at music industry events like SXSW, which starts today in Austin, Texas.

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