With the new Zunes taking up all of my daydreams, I decided to sign up for a Zune Pass, while saving the scratch for the Zune 80.  The Zune Pass really is the most striking difference between Microsoft’s entry into the DAP market, and that certain other ubiquitous white brick.Having signed up and downloaded a couple of albums (at blazing speeds) the whole thing is completely painless.  For 15 bucks a month, you get to legally download just about any music you could want.  As far as I’m concerned, unlike Apple, Microsoft is offering a licensing scheme that actually justifies the existence of an 80GB music player (please tell me that Ipod classic 120 owners are really purchasing $30,000.00 worth of music).

Adding to the ease of use and unlimited access of the Zune Pass, MS has unveiled Zune Social, which is something of a social networking site focused on music, and like last.fm, tracks what you’re listening to, and displays it in a slick custom Zune Card, not unlike the xbox 360 gamercard.  In fact, my Zune account, automatically lists my Xbox Live friends list, so further integration is, I’m guessing, likely.

With the Social site, you can discover new music, and then with the Zune Pass immediately go download those tracks.  The site even allows for many of the recently played songs of your friends to be sampled inline to see if it’s something you’d dig.

So, what would make all of this better?  What’s my idea for the killer app? Easy –

         1.    Enable some sort of streaming functionality
   2.    Ape Pandora and Last.Fm   
            a.    Keep track of what I listen to, already done.
            b.    Come up with a custom streaming station based on that, or, like Pandora, based on an artist I’ve suggested.
            c.    Let me rate the songs you throw at me (since we do have that controversial new heart system already in place)
            d.    Let me flag things for download if I want.
    3.    If you really want me to quit my job to come bring the Zune team coffee in the morning, make my custom Zune Radio station stream on             the Zune when it has wifi access
    4.    Make this service exclusive to Zune Pass subscribers.
    5.    Reinvent the way people find new music.

So there it is, Zune Radio.  I think this could easily be a killer app, something that would completely distinguish the Zune from the competition and, like the Social aspects (as fewer people tune into the radio, and only download and listen to the songs they already know they like),  will further address the problem of discovering new music in the age of digital music.