According to their MySpace,

We are a group of guys that wanted to take our natural singing and dancing abilities and bring back the Boy Band phenomenon of the late 90s.

Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we?
Backstreet made its comeback.. twice...
There are some New New Kids on the Block...
... and now you have us: 4 Softies & a Pizza Guy. We are the hardest hitting Boy Band found exclusively on Teh Internetz. Not even LOLCats can stop us now!

Hope you enjoy our debut single P-D-C 2008.

Oh but if only the LOLcats could stop you! At least whoever's writing this copy has the decency to acknowledge that boy bands were a late-'90s phenomenon, but the fact remains that at this point in time it's both too late to parody them and be relevant and too soon to attempt some sort of nostalgia. The result is a flat, uncomfortably outdated gimmick that was already parodied anyway.

If Microsoft really wanted to generate interest for its product using pop music, the company should have just thrown a couple million dollars at the Jonas Brothers and Tokio Hotel for an old-fashioned cage match. First 300 hysterical teens in line get a free copy of Windows 7!

4 Softies and a Pizza Guy [MySpace; HT Silicon Alley Insider]

Yep, that's a gold-plated iPhone Pharrell is holding. And his Billionaire Boys Club blog has a nod to iPod designer Jonathan Ive. And he owned an iPod.

Man, I miss the days when celebrities really used the products they were endorsing.

Drunken Orson Welles [YouTube]
'I'm A PC' Made On A Mac [Sydney Morning Herald]
I'm a PC ... and I Love My iPhone! [AdAge]
Microsoft Gets Pharrell Williams To Lie For Them [Agency Spy]

Seinfeld got the axe after a series of fairly bizarre ads that I think I liked. Maybe that's part of the problem there. The one where Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld went shoe-shopping really had very little to do with Microsoft, and seemed to be a rather blatant attempt to counter the hip Justin Long/John Hodgman ads that Apple's been cranking out of late. But I gotta admit, moving to Pharell? I like him and all, but I wasn't 100% sure I even knew what the guy looked like until I Googled him and said, "Oh yeah, sure I do." And he's known as much, if not more, for his behind-the-scenes work as for his MCing, no?

In an a skewed way, it's kind of cool to see an artist like Pharrell pitching a behemoth like Microsoft. But in another, less skewed way, it doesn't make a lot of sense given Seinfeld's actual stardom. Seeing as how Seinfeld got $10 million for the ads, this is probably a wise financial decision. Pharrell costs what, a few grand? (Keep in mind, I'm guessing based off my standard rate for public appearances, which is a sixer of Bud Ice.)

Pharrell is actually part of Microsoft's "Phase Two" phalanx. Translation: "Phase One featuring Jerry Seinfeld" only became "Phase One" when those ads tanked. "Phase Two" places Pharrell in a marketing Cerberus that includes Eva Longoria and Deepak Chopra, last seen in The Love Guru. We all know how that one turned out.

I need to point out here that the guy who played weak-spined newspaper editor Thomas Klebanow in Season 5 of The Wire is in this ad. Seeing that guy makes me mad. You should have listened to Gus and Alma, you creep!

Microsoft Dumps Seinfeld For Rapper Pharrell [AllHipHop]

So, what will you be able to do with the new Zune?

These include the ability to buy music over wi-fi, a new feature that lets you buy songs you hear on FM radio, casual games, and some music recommendation features — which Apple's iTunes/iPods could also be getting tomorrow. We also hear that Microsoft will be lowering the price of its Zune Pass subscription service — from $14.99/month — sooner than later.

There's some appeal to those features, although if Apple announces a Pandora-killing music recommendation service of its own at 1 ET, Zune's take on the service will seem less interesting for sure. The ability to buy songs from the radio seems to fit well with the player's built-in tuner, but one wonders just how many people actually use that function of the player, and whether or not this new feature will result in some heretofore-unseen market being tapped in a big way. Seeing how well the whole Zune campaign has gone so far, there's really no reason to doubt their business model.

Zune Gets New Features That Won't Help Sell Zunes [Silicon Valley Insider]

Of course, any club you can get into in Los Angeles isn't cool enough for you to be there, so Zune L.A. is invite only. And look at the entertainment you've missed so far:

At the christening, Zune wooed all manner of movers and shakers in the art, music and event-planning world with mojitos, music and visuals. Eastside promoter and Temporary Spaces founder Sean Patrick DJ'd (plugged into a Zune player, naturally) across from a custom light installation (an "interactive chandelier") from noted London-based artist Moritz Waldemeyer....

Zune L.A. has hosted private events for groups such as CAA, and for now its offerings will remain invitation-only. Musicians such as Janelle Monae and former Black Crowes guitarist Marc Ford have already performed at Zune L.A., and former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker will launch his line of New Era hats this month.

Its next event, on Tuesday, is a screening of "Joy Division: The Documentary" (followed by a 90-minute DJ set from Joy Division bass player Peter Hook).

Former Black Crowes guitarist Marc Ford! And Travis Barker's hats. Man, I miss L.A. so much.

You might assume that Zune L.A. is just another trendy venue with an open bar and a bunch of semi-famous people milling about. You would be wrong.

Chris Stephenson, Zune's general manager of global marketing, calls the space "a clubhouse for the creative community in L.A. — a place for people to gather and connect that's designed for creative expression."..

Says Stephenson: "We envision Zune L.A. as a cultural hub."

So why is Microsoft debuting this concept in L.A., and not in Seattle or New York?

"We wanted to pick somewhere where we could not only feed off the cultural energy of the city but collaborate with the creative community to add to it," he says. "L.A. had the right mix of entertainment gravitas and growing cultural relevance within art and design."

Gravitas and cultural relevance, of course! How did I miss that? I just figured you guys were trying to figure out a way to develop some buzz for your player in the shadow of the iPhone. My mistake.

Zune gets in tune with L.A. [LA Times]

(A quick caveat: I contribute freelance work to the iTunes Store. That being said, I didn't understand the appeal of a less functional, more expensive version of the iPod I already own even before I made any money from Apple, and I'm not even a Mac guy.)

While it may not score them points at their next performance review, the men of Microsoft's a cappella group, the Baudboys, have met their goal.

About five years ago, the programmers-cum-pop singers started reinventing their sound with an eye on the Harmony Sweepstakes, billed as the "premier American showcase for vocal harmony music."

They won the Northwest regional event and will compete Saturday in the national tournament in California.

The group, which split off from another company group called the Microtones in the early 1990s, performed to a packed atrium on the corporate campus Wednesday.

"How cool for Microsoft to have something like that coming from within the ranks," said Shari Fowler, an employee who spent her lunch hour watching the concert.

No comment.

Microsoft's Baudboys singers scoring big with their gigs [Seattle Times; HT mackro]
Baudboys at NW Harmony Sweeps 2008 [Youtube]

Alcatel-Lucent argued in court that technology used to encode and decode digital audio files in Media Player infringed on two of its patents.

Microsoft said that it had paid Munich-based licensing firm Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft 16 million dollars to legally use the disputed MP3 technology.

In his ruling, Brewster concluded that the US software giant did not infringe on one of the patents and that Fraunhofer would need to join Alcatel-Lucent's infringement suit for it to be valid in court.

Bell Labs, which was later swallowed up by Lucent, which was later swallowed up by Alcatel, helped to create the MP3 along with Fraunhofer over a decade ago. If the jury's verdict had been upheld, it's possible that any company which sells MP3s or uses/sells technology that incorporates MP3s would have had to pay up had Alcatel-Lucent come calling on them. As Hypebot also notes, the cost of MP3s and related hardware and software may have also risen due to a new set of royalties and/or licensing fees that would have had to have been paid to the company.

Digital Music Dodges A Bullet As MP3 Ruling Overturned [Hypebot]
Court Drops Microsoft's 1.5 Billion Dollar Fine [Yahoo via AFP]

• Develop and maintain the Voice of Zune.
• Help evangelize Zune's vision across Microsoft.
• Be the editorial expert within Zune.

In case you're wondering, the "Voice of Zune" sounds a bit like Jim Nabors after taking too many antihistamines. But why even bother with this posting? If you're looking for someone whose devotion to the Zune is borderline-evangelical, we know just the guy!

Job Details [Microsoft.com]

Music label EMI made waves Monday when it revealed plans to sell songs on Apple's iTunes online store with no digital copy protection.

On Wednesday, Microsoft rode the waves, spreading word that it, too, is negotiating with EMI and other labels to lift copy protection from music sold on its rival Zune Marketplace.

"A primary objective for us within Zune is to figure out how to give consumers what they want while still balancing the rights of the content owner," said Jason Reindorp, Zune marketing director. "Those kinds of discussions have been happening behind closed doors for some time with EMI as much as any other label."

We're not surprised that Microsoft wants to be next in line for DRM-free content; as Hypebot notes, they have the financial resources to match the reported $5 million advance that Apple gave EMI to engage in this experiment. But this strategy seems to play against the Zune's possible cheap-with-a-subscription plan, which was floated earlier this week. Wouldn't those two marketing strategies directly compete with one another—especially if the Zune store made a similar decision as iTunes, and turned the untethered downloads into "premium" content?

Microsoft is seeking DRM-free music [Seattle P-I, via hypebot]
Earlier: Shiny Brown Turd Gets A Bit Of Hot Pink Lipstick Slapped On It

Now that the YouTube-Google sale has been announced, Microsoft's finally gotten around to launching its own video service, Soapbox (no word yet about when the clearly ahead-of-the-game company will start up its own rotary-phone units). So far, there aren't a whole lot of music clips on the site. But the clips that have made it up are promising, because they're almost all complete and utter crap—the kind of niche-specific crap that could only be uploaded by users. We're talking Chinese pop songs, home-made video montages, and Limp Bizkit videos. For the moment, it looks as though Microsoft and the record labels aren't imposing their own editorial will on Soapbox, which could allow it to grow into a sort of anything-goes populist playground, a la YouTube.

Want proof? Check out this new-ish Samantha Fox video, in which she re-records "Touch Me" with somebody named Günther, who has a perpetual come-hither stare and a guido get-up that has to be a joke (we hope). As the clip's poster notes, this is Muy provocativo stuff, and Bill Gates is hoping you can't get enough of it.

Samantha Fox & Günther - Touch Me [Soapbox]

Though these figures have been rumored for a while, Microsoft has officially set a price and a release date for Zune, its late-to-the-game media-player: A 30GB model will be out Nov. 14th, with a price tag of $249.99. The Zune store will sell songs for 99 cents, and there's also a subscription-service option for $14.99 a month. And for approximately $1, you can buy a pack of ALF puffy stickers on eBay, which will allow you to cover up the device's hideous color scheme.

Microsoft to Charge $249.99 for Zune Player, Due Out in November [AP]

Today, Microsoft officially announced the specs for the Zune, the portable media device that they're hoping will loosen Apple's tight grip on the digital media market. Our gadget-crazed brother Gizmodo has the specifics on the launch — the Zune's two biggest selling points are its three-inch color screen and its wireless capabilities, which will allow users to send music files back and forth between each other. Beamed music will have a shelf life of "three days or three plays," which seems to be just long enough to allow a user to either totally get sick of a song or totally be convinced to buy it from the Zune-branded store, the Zune Marketplace.

If it seems that all your favorite music blogs are a little Zuned out this afternoon, there's a reason why.

In a move that makes us wonder if the Zune team is a bit more savvy than we normally give Microsoft credit, influential MP3 bloggers were flown out for a Zunetastic junket. Stereogum's lengthy analysis, which went up at the stroke of noon ET, does an excellent job of breaking down the Zune's pros (the screen, the beaming capability) and cons (the only size available is 30GBand the price tag is $300), while My Old Kentucky Blog notes that blogosphere faves Cansei de Ser Sexy and Band of Horses will be among the artists integrated into the Zune's branding.

As Stereogum notes, Microsoft seems to be going for the "community" angle with the Zune, from the aforementioned song-beaming to the music-blogger appeasing roster (will Cansei de Ser Sexy really move more than five or six units?). Which all sounds one-world groovy until you realize that portable music-listening—unlike, say, playing a video game—is a pretty solitary exercise; for example, "can I beam you this song?" really doesn't work as a pickup line, especially when the person you're trying to pick up has "Ring the Alarm" blaring out of tightly affixed headphones.

If anything, though, the initial problems with the Zune won't lie in its it's-all-good marketing strategy; it's the limitations of the hardware. The lack of version 1.0 options—the Zune won't be compatible with iTunes or Apple, it's only available in 30 GB, and it comes with a steeper-than-an-iPod price—still makes the iPod a more attractive alternative. Unless they recruit one of the remaining digital-store holdouts—The Beatles, Led Zeppelin—to the Zune Marketplace, it looks like Microsoft will retain its underdog status in the portable media player realm until it launches a second-generation version.

Microsoft Zune Gets Officially Announced [Gizmodo]
Stereogum's Sneak Peak At Zune [stereogum]