Let me preface this post by stating that I have nothing but respect for the Zune team. J Allard has performed miracles with the Xbox, and I’ve worked with half of the music store dev team. Juster, Lau, Jubez - all smart guys.

However, the more I learn about Zune, the more disappointed I am. The WiFi radio held so much potential, yet the final product fell so short. Here’re a couple critical components that Redmond needs to be thinking long and hard about.

Asynchronous Buddy Recommendations

Its interesting that you can send a preview of one of your purchased songs to a friend of yours. However, for me personally, most of the friends that I hear about new music from are not in the same time zones as me. Not to mention we’ve all got our own busy schedules, and rarely have time to chat about music. Its simply unrealistic to require your friends to be in the same place and time to share music.

The Zune client ought to support storing of buddy recommendations. Once you enter a WiFi zone, the client uploads your recommendations to a server that holds your buddy’s “recommendations inbox.” The next time your friend comes online, he automatically downloads the preview.

Wireless Push Service

Why, oh why did Microsoft not snap up Last.fm? The WiFi radio makes the device a perfect match. For the less geeky, Last.fm offers plug-ins to your favorite music apps (iTunes, WMP, Winamp, etc) and tracks how often you play different songs. The play counts are used to create a music profile, and your profile is matched up with other profiles that have similar patterns. The service then recommends songs that you haven’t discovered yet, but other people with similar tastes listen to.

The Zune ought to have a Last.fm plug-in for their player, which would upload your play counts automatically any time you entered a WiFi network. As a bonus, if you have an all-you-can-eat subscription, you’ll simultaneously have the latest Last.fm recommended songs uploaded to your player for you to sample.