xbox music

We’re actually pretty big fans of Shazam, the popular music ID service, as it tends to do a slightly more accurate job than the Bing music service. Throw in the ability to pin the scanner to your Start screen for 1-touch access and we’re happy campers.

Today, Shazam is announcing an updated Windows Phone 8 version of their popular app and it looks quite polished. Probably the biggest improvement comes from the tie in to Nokia Music, which is becoming an ever more popular service on Lumia Windows Phones.

Do you enjoy the free streaming with Xbox Music? You'll soon have to put up with audio advertisements.

Microsoft is brining in TargetSpot, a New York City-based digital audio advertising network, to deliver in-stream advertisements on its Xbox Music service. Available on the Xbox 360 console, Windows RT / 8 installations and Windows Phones, the cloud service will sport advertisements on the free stream only. It makes sense for Microsoft to look at ways to monetise users who don't contribute to the pool through the optional subscription.

Listening to music on your Windows Phone and use a Last.fm account? You'll need this app installed. ScrobbleMe is a simple app by Arnold Vink, the creator of ZuseMe and ZenseMe, which offers "scrobbling" support for all music played on the Windows Phone ("scrobbling" is basically to feed Last.fm data on your music history). Really handy if you're one to enjoy keeping on top of play counts and show friends what you're listening to. And, it works pretty well.

Microsoft has fired out an email introducing consumers to the Xbox Music Pass, which was previously branded the Zune Pass. The subscription model opens up an impressive catalogue of music that's available for streaming, download and purchase (should one wish to cancel the subscription but retain music tracks). We've previously expected the company to launch the rebranded streaming service as successor.

The folks over at LiveSide have been going through the source code of SkyDrive.com and uncovered a tasty tidbit of musical interest: SkyDrive.com appears to be getting a cloud-based music player. Resource images obtained by LiveSide from an internal testing version of SkyDrive seem to corroborate the feature, depicting player control button icons for "play," "pause," and "skip."

This guide is aimed at those who already have a previous generation Windows Phone handset but can also be worthwhile for those of you who are new to the platform.

We’re going to cover what you need to know in order to ease the transition from old to new so you can get back to top speed and start enjoying your new device.

Update: And just like that our Xbox Music app updated and is now auto-importing Zune Pass content. So it works going forward, but Xbox Music does not DRM sync back to Zune--yet.

Eck. Looks like there’s going to be a headache for some of us as we upgrade and merge to Windows 8 (and Windows Phone 8) regarding music. Turns out, Zune Pass music doesn't like to import into Xbox Music and vice versa.

The problem is thus: when you open Xbox Music on a Windows 8 PC, it won’t recognize your Zune Pass content, which for some of you could be quite substantial.  There is supposedly a work-around that involves creating a playlist in Zune Desktop of just your Pass music and then using Xbox Music to import that, resulting in a re-downloading of your music.  You can try that via this tutorial at Bibble-it.com.

For us however we were able to get the playlist into our Xbox Music where it played but we couldn’t import the actual albums/songs, leaving us unsatisfied.

The other day we mentioned how the Xbox Music team had sent out emails to current Zune Pass users, detailing what changes were coming down the road. In addition, some of us also received 1000 MS Points that could be used anywhere—videos, movies, music, games, etc.

As it turns out, not everyone received those and that looks to be by design. In a recent tweet by @ZuneSupport notes as much though they did not provide details on criteria e.g. random or long-time user for getting them.

If you’re a current Zune Pass subscriber, you may want to check your email. Microsoft has just sent out the Xbox Music update details for those who are using Zune Pass and what’s more, they’re throwing in a 1,000 MS Points to celebrate.

Those points (worth $12.50 or an average album) can be used “on any of the music, video, or game content on Xbox LIVE”. (Wait, we’re still calling it Xbox LIVE?)