Microsoft’s Zune site went down this week, in a move eerily similar to Apple’s Apple Store takedown, and on the same day too. New features cropped up afterwards including the entire podcast catalogue made available on Zune.net, but there was just one problem: nobody noticed.
Zune.net went offline for part of Tuesday, returning with new features including the ability to stream Zune podcasts via your PC (US only, cheers guys). But just the same day, Apple took its store offline across the world for several hours, whipping Mac fans into a frenzy before the new iMac, Mac Mini and Mac Pro models were unveiled.
Type in Zune on Google news, and you’ll see just two news stories covered the Zune.net update – on the other hand, “Apple Store” triggered around 856 news articles, according to the same service. In fact, if you compare the two words in Twitter, you get this:
Yup, the red line is Apple, and the blue line hovering around 0 is Zune. Quite literally, Microsoft’s update went unnoticed.
Admittedly, the outage could have been simply as long as it took to upload the new content, and the Zune update isn’t on the same scale as three new Mac models, but it does go to show just how finely tuned Apple’s marketing machine is, even compared to the bigger company, Microsoft.
Coincidence, or a major PR failure from Microsoft? Either way, the Zune.net update is another bit of salt in the wound to us Brits as we wait patiently for Microsoft to release a Zune, any Zune, here in Blighty.
