Ellen DeGeneres Show gives away Microsoft Zunes, studio audience goes berserk

Looks like the Ellen DeGeneres show gave away a bunch of Microsoft Zunes (The #1 daytime show, Oprah, already did it with Apple’s iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition).

Note the lack of information about the draconian limits to Zune sharing (three times, then self-destruct – regardless of media source, ie. from a store or even a song you made yourself; all shared Zune content gets Microsoft’s 3-time-only-then-go-boom DRM), that the round thing there is a fake click wheel designed to fool people that it works like an iPod (it’s really just a four-way button), or the fact that the Zune Marketplace doesn’t even offer video content.

Note also that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American housefrau (or overestimating their size). Ellen’s studio full of carbo-loaded soccer moms go absolutely berserk; it’s like a Saturday Night Live skit. We can only pray that those studio bleachers are severely reinforced. Man, there’s a whole lotta shakin’ going on over at Ellen! Seriously, they really ought to call it The Ellen DeGeneres Farm Hour: two normal-sized humans in front of the camera and 300 cows behind it. No wonder our health insurance rates are astro-freakin-nomical.

One word: diet. Here’s another: exercise.

Anyway, after seeing that bizarre reaction to a piece of re-branded Toshiba crap, we hope they had medics on hand for the fainters or at least passed out cigarettes after the orgasmic excitement subsided. We didn’t see any squirting, but something was certainly going on:

So, whaddya think, can Microsoft fool the ignorant masses again (in which case, Steve Jobs would nip the whole thing in the bud PDQ) or will people not be so excited once they find out Zune’s many weaknesses?

Related articles:
More Microsoft Zune myths explored – October 20, 2006
Five more Microsoft Zune myths – October 18, 2006
Microsoft Zune intensifies chaos in Apple iPod+iTunes also-ran market – October 16, 2006
Newsweek Q&A: Apple CEO Steve Jobs discusses iPod’s impact, Microsoft’s Zune, and more – October 15, 2006
Microsoft’s Ballmer: Zune device not money loser, wishes Apple’s 30GB iPod was $299 instead of $249 – October 11, 2006
Microsoft’s consumer electronics track record: long string of failures – October 11, 2006
MP3.com founder: ‘Zune will be an expensive failure for Microsoft because consumers aren’t stupid’ – October 06, 2006
Microsoft fails to secure key Zune domains – October 04, 2006
Microsoft rigs Zune with tricky pricing and proprietary money schemes – October 03, 2006
Why Microsoft’s Zune won’t kill Apple’s iPod – October 03, 2006
10 Apple iPod vs. Microsoft Zune myths – October 02, 2006
Analyst: Zune could lead to ‘civil war’ between Microsoft and Windows Media partners – September 29, 2006
Thurrott on Microsoft’s Zune: ‘The makings of a disaster, what the heck are these people thinking?’ – September 29, 2006
Analyst: Microsoft Zune’s as good as dead on arrival – September 28, 2006
Microsoft sets 30GB Zune price at $249.99 – September 28, 2006
How Microsoft’s Zune can kill Apple’s iPod – September 21, 2006
Microsoft’s Zune insanity – September 21, 2006
The Microsoft Zune 1.0 dud – September 20, 2006
Microsoft’s underwhelming Zune a ‘viral DRM’ device – September 18, 2006
SanDisk teams with RealNetworks against new common foe: Microsoft Zune – September 18, 2006
Creative does Apple’s dirty work by immediately attacking Microsoft’s Zune – September 17, 2006
Motley Fool’s Jayson: Microsoft’s ‘just plain ugly’ Zune a meager offering, not an iPod killer – September 15, 2006
What’s in a name? ‘Zune’ a French-Canadian euphemism for penis or vagina – September 15, 2006
Crave at CNET: ‘Microsoft Zune, all the excitement that brown can bring’ – September 15, 2006
Microsoft’s Zune underwhelms – September 15, 2006
Enderle: Microsoft Zune ‘a design mistake’ – September 15, 2006
Microsoft hypocrisy exposed with Zune: What ever happened to ‘choice?’ – September 14, 2006
Analyst: Microsoft Zune with fake scroll wheel ‘hardly an Apple iPod killer’ – September 14, 2006
Analyst: Microsoft Zune won’t spoil Apple’s biggest iPod Christmas ever – September 14, 2006
Microsoft unveils Zune 30GB player, Zune Marketplace; declines to disclose prices – September 14, 2006
Analyst: Microsoft’s Zune an ‘underwhelming’ repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat; no threat to Apple iPod – August 30, 2006
Microsoft confirms brick-like Zune to be made by Toshiba – August 25, 2006
Microsoft Zune is chunky brick made by Toshiba – August 25, 2006
Microsoft to spend hundreds of millions, several years on Zune trying to catch Apple iPod+iTunes – July 27, 2006
Zune: Apple cannot lose. Microsoft cannot win. – July 26, 2006

120 Comments

  1. There is only one legit Zune offering on eBay at this time. it is a pre-order auction with no bids.

    There are three Zunes offered from Hong Kong with pick up delivery only. Sounds like a scam. Lots of Zune domain names for sale.

  2. How did they give away something that’s not on available yet? Maybe they got a coupon for one. If they did get one at the studio, those Zunes will actually get a good price on eBay until they are available to the public. And just think, that studio may be the only time they will be in a crowded place with other Zunes within wireless range.

  3. WOW.. that’s a lot of enthusiasm.. is that authentic?

    I kind of feel sorry for those people.. like an old person who thinks they got an “exceptional deal on a guaranteed investment.”

    Oh well, I guess it plays MP3 files at least, so maybe it’s not totally worthless.

  4. Ellen and Oprah and the like are nothing more than high priced infomercials anymore.

    All they do is sell their name at a nice penny to ANYONE who wants to sell something.

    books, diets, media players, psychics, movies, etc.

    They sold their soul long ago

  5. Just wait until the realize that NONE of the legal music services support it and they’ll have to wait to buy it from MicroSUX. Also, like someone else said, live audiences have cheerleaders just off camera that cue people to cheer, boo, whatever. Heck, I bet most of those folks thought they were getting free iPods and even called to say the got the new iPod to friends until they were quickly corrected. This thing is going to SO die when the next iPod with the wide screen, HD, Virtual click wheel hits.

  6. “Tina, you fat lard, come get some dinner!”

    No wonder there are more single than married adults now. If this is what today’s woman turns into after marriage… no thanks!

    So is all this fat a product of feminism, our food industry, or…?

    Zune… oh yeah… I was too grossed out by the women to be grossed out by the Zune (though it does).
    ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”shock” style=”border:0;” />

    MW: issue

  7. Just luurve the madness of it all ;]

    Give it to me free and I’d be dropping my pants too, even if I binned it next day!

    Anyway it’s a studio audience who’ve been amped up to squeal!

    ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”LOL” style=”border:0;” />

  8. Never over estimate the average consumer.
    I offer Windows as proof.

    Zune may do well, depends on how the masses who already have an iPod treat those who are getting Zunes. Like getting the blue Keds when everyone else had the red ones, you hid the blue ones and pretended that your old man was out of work. You say anything before you admitted that your Mom bought you the ones that weren’t cool.

  9. “The movies is so clear”

    Ellen said it pays movies.

    She wouldn’t lie, would she?

    Oh wait she said it was cool too, so she’s a complete fraud.

    They went crazy for the social networking part second only to the “getting one for free” part.

    I think women for some reason like the idea of sharing, whereas us guys could give a fly crap about it.

  10. Why do people like this obviously stupid oriental chick spout their nonsense as if they actually know something?

    She says, “These things create a social network”.

    Uh, what’s that you say? A social network?!!! How is squirting a song with an expiration date shorter than milk equal to a “social network”. I have this type of buzzword shit. She’s reading directly from the MS talking points.

    And all of those dumb bi***es in the audience jumping up and down for having a “social network”? So, when they get home with their crap-colored brick , HOW EXACTLY ARE THEY GOING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT SOCIAL NETWORK?!!! Do all of the audience members live in an Ellen Lesbian commune or something? That’s one of the main problems with this highly overrated feature of the Zune. It’s not self-contained. It’s not a feature you are guaranteed to be able to use. It requires someone being nearby to you that:

    A) Is also clueless enough to have a Zune
    B) You know well enough to actually squirt something to or receive a squirt from

    For all of their orgasmic hoopla, not one of those dumber-than-stumps women will ever do any squirting with their Zunes – either to or from.

    And then, notice how the oriental chicks talk about the great “resolution”. Uh, yeah, it has the identical resolution to the iPod, you ignorant whore. But since it’s large it’s not as sharp. She’s equating dimensions with resolution! I can only think of one good use for her. She looks pretty good in those pants, and her face aint bad either. But anything taking a little thought and knowledge is something she should stay away from.

  11. I just watched that wretched video again and noticed that the audience members are overwhelmingly fat and ugly. When they jump up and down you see all of this blubber bouncing up and down. These chicks probably don’t need much to excite them in their dull lives.

    Looks like Ellen has created a social network of fat and ugly bordeline-lesbian buffoons.

  12. Can anyone say paid response? I could understand that kind of response if they were giving away free iPods, but damn. They were straight dancing in the isle. I guess they replaced their little “applaud” light with a “jump up and down and give praise” light.

  13. Take it easy Oops.
    This was just a lame marketing event. Of course the zune rep is not going to tell anyone about the severe limitations of the thing. They are just trying to sell the product. No need to resort to name calling. I mean, we’re talking about consumer electronics here… do we really need to call anyone a whore for not being entirely forthcoming about the Zune’s resolution vs the iPod? What ever happened to manners? My mom would have knocked me into next week if she ever caught me disrespecting a woman like that.

  14. Ellen likes to put her Zune in the vibrate mode, then put it, heh heh heh, between her heh heh heh legs and heh heh up her BUM, then have a friend squirt a song on over, heh heh heh and……

  15. Um, these people didn’t “go” nuts for the Zune… This is no different than reality television (and how the producers give people direction) – and the fact that there are large blinking signs that say “APPLAUSE” for the studio audience. These people were merely told to “go” nuts by the producers of the show thus why they look like they’re freaking out.. It’s TV plain and simple…

  16. holdon wrote:

    “Take it easy Oops.
    This was just a lame marketing event. Of course the zune rep is not going to tell anyone about the severe limitations of the thing. They are just trying to sell the product. No need to resort to name calling. I mean, we’re talking about consumer electronics here… do we really need to call anyone a whore for not being entirely forthcoming about the Zune’s resolution vs the iPod? What ever happened to manners? My mom would have knocked me into next week if she ever caught me disrespecting a woman like that.”

    My reply: She’s a lying marketing whore. If she spreads ignorance, then she spreads ignorance. It’s not somehow acceptable that she did it because it’s a “lame marketing event”. That oriental chick has only one good use, and that’s to be flat on all fours taking what she’s got coming to her with her mouth taped shut.

    And BTW, I couldn’t care less about your useless momma that obviously turned you into a milquetoast wimp that licks women’s boots. I bet you’re gay.

  17. Oops,

    “And BTW, I couldn’t care less about your useless momma that obviously turned you into a milquetoast wimp that licks women’s boots. I bet you’re gay.”

    Way to go, keyboard Kommando. Looks like using an iPod hasn’t raised your intelligence very much.

  18. Will, I have found that once you are as saturated with intelligence as I am, it becomes increasingly difficult to become even more intelligent. It’s like trying to make a wet sponge wetter. Or like trying to make Will’s hole looser.

    Okay, all kidding aside, you seem unable to detect I’m just toying with “holdon” by resorting being deliberately over-the-top.

    Because? Well, “holdon” prances onto the scene and presumes to lecture me. One thing I hate as much as ignorance is self-righteous, moralizing, sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, Johnny Goodheart soapboxing. So I cut his nut off and fed it to my pitbull.

  19. Can someone say applause signal?

    Noone really wants a Zune, nobody even knows what it is except for people that keep up with this tech stuff.

    Nice one Microsoft but ur not gonna make a profit by giving away zune’s.

  20. Jon,

    M$ isn’t trying to make a profit. They’re creating a “social network.” You know, to be all do-goodie and stuff.

    I love that line “It creates a social network.” How the hell do you know? They’re not even available yet.

  21. Lots of adolescent boy posturing on here. Yeah, that’s what I come for.

    Oh yeah, & little man “Oops” is just a mouthy boy.

    I’ve used, fixed & sold Macs longer than most of you have been alive, so I’m an Apple fan, but you kids are just silly.

    The internet is too often a pooling of the lowest denominator… even among Mac users.

    geeze

  22. the skinny “marketing filler” states: “you can put it in landscape to make your pictures and movies bigger.”

    Of course they’re going to be “bigger” than say the iPod’s, at least from a resolution standpoint. Both are 320×240, yet the Zune has a larger screen. Which means your pixels are just bigger.

  23. That was *astonishingly* lame. It was full of lies! The Zune doesn’t even support video — it only has animation for the backdrop screen to fool people into thinking it does video. She makes it sound like the Zune does movies like the iPod.

    And notice she’d didn’t actually show “squirting” a song to Ellen — that would have taken too long and the audience would have gotten bored and wandered away.

    That landscape quote was my favorite: how does merely rotating your Zune 90 degrees make the screen BIGGER???

    Ridiculous stuff!

  24. Wow! I never imagined Apple people could be so nasty and vicious. We all know the Zune will NEVER even come close to the success of the iPod. The fact that we’re secure in that knowledge makes the name-calling and cruelty all the more unnecessary.

    One word: humility. Here’s another: compassion.

  25. I may be a bit late to this (i do have a job y’know) someone may have covered this already… and if they have then I totally agree with them. That said, has anyone here ever been to the taping of a program with a studio audience? I have. I’ve been to a few. Doesn’t matter which one you go to –they’re all the same. Audience participation and reaction is manufactured. It’s Hollywood baby! What you don’t see is what’s happening with the audience between takes and comercial breaks. There’s someone (in many cases a few people) in charge of making the audience cheer, boo, gasp and/or whimper as the situation may dictate. As anyone here who’s witnessed it can attest, audience reaction is absolutely fake and very much manufactured. These people are excited about being told to be excited. Their reaction has little to do with anything except the sheer excitement of being part of the show in some way. It’s more than a little scary how mob mentality is engadged in these situations. You saw it. It’s almost as if they were reacting to the fact thay every person in the studio won 100 million dollars and a limo ride to the moon. Now, I’m not saying that Zune will succeed or fail. Microsoft needs to make this work. I’m sure they’ll pull out all the stops on this one…

  26. i don’t know…but what i could see…the people there were really fat, overweight 15 year olds….sorry….i watched it twice….the show should have been about how fat those girls really are….and what they should do about it….sorry…they have an IQ of a tree and they saw a sign to cheer and jump up and down about zune….or some other body part…

    i know…i shouldn’t be so cruel….but i just can’t help saying the truth….young people are so very stupid….especially with the fag woman up there telling everyone how great this thing is…it really sounds like a microcrap commerical…

    i wonder if the raptor will use this in a few weeks…this will be the best commerical redmond will come up with….as they lose $$ on everyone they sale…

    i’m sorry to offend anyone out there that is overwieght….but to be 50 + pounds overweight at 15 years old is really bad…it will only get worse as you grow older….

    I will try to be more polically correct in the future….but zune is a nothing thing….but then…for free…i bet there will be millions sold…or given away….

  27. This whole social networking thing Microcock is trying to push probably will have some sort of MySpace-like hype about it. “If you use a Zune, you’ll have friends.” Ought to appeal to the socially inept geeks that tend to be some of the most diehard Windoze fans and all the emo people, which may include the type on this show. Just my opinion on the matter.

    MDW class. Such as Microsoft has no class.

  28. Come on, MDN, fat jokes? Why would you even present your readers with the temptation to engage in such juvenile crap. Are you that insecure about the dominance of the iPod? I’m not. As I see it, the only thing the Zune has going for it is the widescreen display for movies. I figure Apple is going to encorporate that into a future version of iPod anyway, so it won’t make a huge difference.

  29. Unfortunately – MS CAN fool the masses. I was at a sales recognition event last night where they gave away some Zen MP3 and video players and people went nuts. – Overheard a comment that iPods were for macs so they were glad to get this one.
    The untapped market of ignorance is still huge – all the iPods ever sold would probably not furnish all the inhabitants of the state of Texas. (20 mil plus) – that leaves the rest of the world untapped for MS crap

  30. “Matthew”
    Zune doesn’t have a widescreen display… just do a little research and you’ll see that… in fact, just search THIS site for the article Zune Myths and you’ll see all about that “widescreen display”.

  31. “Zune: the choice of DeGenerates”

    Now you’d just stealing Apple’s line where they claim to appeal to “Artistic” people.

    “Which means your pixels are just bigger.”

    Which results in a larger overall screen size, Which is the point.

    “The untapped market of ignorance is still huge “

    1.6 million Macs this quarter, it has to be at least THAT big.

  32. HI ELLEN,

    I’VE BEEN TRYING TO FIND YOUR E-MAIL FOR A WHILE AND EVERYTIME I THINK I’VE FOUND IT – THERE SEEMS TO BE SOME TYPE OF CATCH ON THE INTERNET.

    ANYWAY, I’VE ADOPTED 3 DOGS 1/2 AND MY PLACE IS SMALL AND I’VE ACTUALLY BEEN HIDING MY DOGS FROM MY LANDLORD…I KNOW OF YOUR LOVE FOR ANIMALS AND I WAS HOPING THAT YOU COULD HELP ME OUT OF MY DELIMMA…PRETTY SOON HE’S GOING TO FIND OUT…

    IF YOU CAN HELP, I’D REALLY APPRECIATED IT…

    SINCERELY WORRIED ABOUT MY DOGS (412) 390-2039
    PITTSBURGH, PA

    ANISE PETITE-DOG LOVER/PUPPY LOVER/ANIMAL LOVER

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.