For the last while I have been talking about the upcoming update. As of Tuesday, the update went live and of course I made sure to tweet from my xbox almost right away. After that? Well, it might be safe to say that the novelty wore off fairly quickly.
Facebook
One of the first things I noticed when I logged on to Facebook is the news feeds on the home page. I think that being able to see my friends' status updates would have been FAR more exciting back before social gaming. More than half of what pops up in my news feed is that so-and-so has used Farmville, Yoville, etc. Being the Zynga game addict that I am, I am glad to see that my friends are playing too, but these are not the updates that will improve my game. There is no option of seeing that there is an ugly duckling up for adoption or rewards for ribbons available. I understand that I would not be able to get these items, but at least I might know that they are there and rush off to a computer. Now, I also know that not everyone plays these games, so there is really no reason why these types of messages should pop up on my xbox at all.
One thing that I really do like is being able to see my pictures in slideshow format. What can I say? I look awesome on the tv! Ok, back to reality. While I do like this option I do not think it is really needed. With Windows Media Center I can do right from files on my PC which tends to be more up to date. Of course there is a possibility that you might want to pull up your friends' pictures on your television and watch a slideshow, but even though I really love my friends I can't really see that happening outside of a wedding or some other really awesome party.
The one thing I was really looking forward to is under the friends section. The ability to be able to find friends that are also on Live is an exciting feature for me. Unfortunately, so far I am very disappointed. Out of over 700 friends at only tells me I have 3 friends on Live and one more that I do not have on my Live friends list. On launch day I was pretty disappointed and figured it was because people are still at work or class and figured that it would improve in a couple of days. Well, it is now Friday and no such luck. I am sure this will change as more people start using Facebook on Live, but it makes me wonder if people are even interested in doing so.
Overall, I think using Facebook is pretty pointless. Finding Facebook friends on Live could become helpful, but has not been for me so far. Not being able to access my Facebook games is a major drawback for me. I understand not wanting to promote these games, but at least give us something exclusive. Exclusive games that can only be played on xbox Live and stats that are automatically placed in Facebook status updates. Or, at the very least make it so our feeds update when we play a game or unlock achievements!
Twitter
Ah Twitter. So simple and so addictive. Well, until the novelty wears off. I honestly think that I would have LOVED this feature a year ago. I started using Twitter August of 2008 and was addicted within a couple of months. Even before I had my iPhone I was tweeting an insane amount throughout my day. Now I am pretty much over it. I no longer use twitter to get my news and I hardly ever update twitter with the exception of this blog. There is a possibility that I will use Twitter more now that it is on xbox, but I honestly feel that my television can be of better use such as gaming or watching any number of television shows.
One of the things that I think could have made this more useful is pretty much the same as what I said about Facebook. If Twitter automatically updated when I played a game (which I already do through a third party website) or when unlocking achievements, I would be very excited! I do like that there is an option to retweet, but that is about it. Twitter is just too accessible in other ways to make this at all useful.
Zune
I will admit that I had never looked at the Zune website before finding out that it would be part of the update. Unlike the first two features I talked about, I think this one could be really awesome for a lot of people! With Zune on xbox you can rent and/or buy movies, tv shows, music, or music videos and you don't need a credit card to do it since it uses Microsoft Points. The reason why I say this is good for some is that while buying movies is not expensive it might be higher than buying single disk versions at a store or on Amazon.com. I personally am a fan of two-disk copies of movies which are generally more expensive and so I am a little torn on what I will do in the future. The good side of this is that if you purchase a game on your xbox you will be able to also download it on your computer. Also, movies that have been purchased on the computer will be available on the xbox through your home network.
I am also divided on the idea of renting movies. I have stated in the past that I am disappointed with the collection of streaming movies on Netflix. I also seem to keep the movies I get in the mail for long periods of time. If I only watch four movies a month I would probably save money buy renting from Zune over Netflix, but the issue of selection still comes into play. While it appears that Zune has more recent movies available for rental, several of the movies I would have chosen where only available for purchase and at least one of them (Star Trek) is on my "two-disk + digital copy" to buy list. Even with that being the case I will seriously consider stopping my Netflix and going with Zune at least until summer when I tend to watch more movies.
Last.fm
If you have used and liked Pandora you will like Last.fm. This is by far my favorite feature that was added during the update. If there is anything I am willing to not watch television or play games for it is music. There are so many times that I am doing something in my living room other than watching tv, but I want something to listen to. This generally ends up being hours of local and national news which is probably the most depressing thing to listen to in any given day. Now sure I could listen to music on my computer, but the truth is that my computer speakers are really not the greatest. The other thing that I enjoy is that I am not only listening to music that I already own and with that comes that possibility of discovering something new. Stations are based on an artist that you already like. For instance, I picked one of the stations that was listed as popular and ended up hearing music that I never before would have considered listening to. I probably still would not buy some of the music, but it was by no means unenjoyable. On the other hand, I also heard a band that I absolutely loved back in the day and will now probably try to see if I still have the CD I bought way back when. Premade stations range from classical to country to metal to emo.
The latest update sure has its flops, but the additions of Zune and Last.fm will probably make up for Microsoft jumping on the Twitter/Facebook band wagon. This all days make me curious about what they will do next!
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