Another research group is predicting a slow start for Microsoft’s Zune portable media player. According to Gartner, the Zune is unlikely to find much success during the 2006 holiday season.

“Microsoft‚Äôs claimed differentiation for Zune is based on applying Web 2.0 community concepts to the music experience,” notes Gartner. “With the inclusion of an integrated Wi-Fi/antenna, Zune users can exchange or share songs by transferring them to each other. Whilst Gartner believes this is a good, high level strategy that is potentially market leading, it is not clear that the scenario Microsoft describes is all that compelling. Consumers will not be able to buy songs or videos from the Zune Marketplace direct from the device. Instead users ‚Äúshare‚Äù songs and shared songs do not remain on the receiving device permanently; rather they can be played three times in three days.”

Gartner notes that Microsoft has failed to put a dent in Apple’s content lead.

“Most notably absent are any deals with studios for content, whether audio or video,” they note. “The lack of video in particular is surprising given Microsoft‚Äôs early lead in video support with its portable media centre (PMC). The company has some content on MSN Video, which is not being leveraged by Zune.”

YouthNoise, a social network for youth dedicated to social change, and Veeker, a mobilecasting service, have announced the launch of Veek the Vote 2006, intended to encourage youth to get politically active this November 7th by using the video cameras in their mobile phones to communicate their experiences on Election Day.

YouthNoise, through its Web site, is inviting its users to use Veeker to send instant video updates from their local polling stations, political rallies, protests, Election Day parties and any other election-related activities or events. Veeker’s service will post the videos in about a minute at YouthNoise, Veeker and VeekTheVote sites.

“Election coverage not so long ago was the purview of television. Very recently, it became more decentralized by the blogosphere,” said Rodger Raderman, Veeker’s Chief Marketing and Product Officer. “Veek the Vote 2006 carries this trend a step further, giving young Americans the ability to instantly communicate their Election Day experiences with video, using nothing more than the mobile phones in their pockets. It is an exciting democratization of reporting on the voting process, enabled by mobile video communication technology.”

The Vloggies, a video blogging award presented by PodTech, were held Saturday, November 4th, in a ceremony in San Francisco. The ceremony was hosted by PodTech’s Irina Slutsky, and soap-opera star turned vlogger Daniel McVicar.

Winners included Rocketboom, Ryanne Hodson, Ask a Ninja, Diggnation and Galacticast. Josh Wolf, who is currently in jail for refusing to turn over video tapes he took of a violent anti-G8 demonstration, was recognized for having the most Controversial Vlog.

Ze Frank, recognized as the Favorite Male Videoblogger, gave a long-distance acceptance speech, noting “Just the other day, I was saying that my genitals would come in handy….”

The biggest winner of the night, though, was Alive in Baghdad, which took the awards for Best Vlog, Best Political Vlog and several other categories.

The percent of computers accessing the Internet that are running Macintosh OS X is up by 35% since last year, according to figures from Market Share.

5.21% of the computers accessing the Internet were Macs in October, compared to 3.87% a year ago.

While these numbers are good news for OS X fans, Macs still trail PCs running Microsoft’s 7-year old operating system Windows 2000. Computers running 2000 account for 5.79%, while XP accounts for 84.62%.

Apple’s Steve Jobs has been voted the Greatest Person in Information Technology.

To mark its 40 anniversary, UK technology magazine Computer Weekly asked its readers to vote for who they consider the greatest people of the past 40 years of IT. Jobs topped the list, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Internet, and Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux.

Butterball’s Turkey Talk podcast is an interesting example of a corporate edutainment podcast.

The podcast series focuses on holiday traditions, planning and food preperation ideas, which frequently involve Butterball turkeys.

The first episode (MP3) covers Preparation 101. It’s hosted by turkey experts Mary Clingman, director of the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line, and Sherleen Clausen, director of the Butterball Test Kitchens, and features tips for getting ready for the holidays and a step-by-step guide to cooking “the perfect turkey.”

iFixit, a site that sells Mac and iPod parts and upgrades, has published a guide to disassembling the latest iPod shuffle.

The dissection reveals the density of the electronics in the new shuffle:

Microsoft’s Zune.net site is now live, along with zune-arts.net, a site that Microsoft describes as “a place for creative expression around the idea of sharing from some of today’s most progressive artists, animators and designers”.

Though the Zune sites are live, content is still sparse. Microsoft is launching the Zune November 14th, 2006. Windows has also announced plans to shutter its older MSN Music download service.

The Zune is Microsoft’s attempt at an iPod-killer – a closed music system that includes a digital music player, Windows software and an online music service.

Microsoft announced today that it was ending sales of music from MSN Music, its 2-year old attempt to create an iTunes killer.

While Microsoft officially plans to continue to support the PlaysForSure format, the company is eliminating Windows Media Format music downloads from its site and introducing a new format with the Zune media player.
“After November 14, the ‘Buy’ buttons that you’re used to seeing on MSN Music album and artist pages will change to links that connect you to Zune and to Real Rhapsody,” according to Microsoft.

Microsoft’s moves have made many to conclude that Microsoft was abandoning its PlaysForSure partners and focusing on consolidating the music download market around the Apple/iPod and Zune closed digital music systems.

Apple today announced a new 8GB model of the iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition. The new 8GB iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition holds up to 2,000 songs and is available for $249, joining the 4GB model priced at $199.

Both models come in a red aluminum enclosure and feature 24 hours of battery life. Apple will contribute $10 from the sale of each iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED to the Global Fund to help fight HIV/AIDS in Africa.

“Customer response to the iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition has been off the charts,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPod Product Marketing.