It appears that Microsoft may be lacking one key ingredient to their Zune marketing campaign - the Zune.com domain name. That’s right. Zune.com is currently owned by one Antonio Nogales of London and not by Microsoft. Microsoft did manage to secure Zune.net but if you look at the registration records, you’ll notice that Zune.net was registered to Microsoft on June 26th of this year - a bit late for a new product launch no?  Of course, it’s probable that Microsoft will end up owning Zune.com one way or another but it’s a bit funny that they don’t have it in the meantime given how close the launch is now.

Now getting Zune.com wasn’t the only problem for Microsoft. RedHerring (which reported on this domain name oversight) also reports that ZuneMarketplace.com belongs to someone OTHER than Microsoft. We’re not sure if Microsoft would want that domain name or not (it’s totally possible that the Zune Marketplace would be folded right into their live initiatives if you ask us) but yes - it’s another strange domain name oversight. Again - you’d think that when you launch a new product, you’d want all of the marketing materials to be in line with your product launch - including domain names.

At the end of the day we do know two things: 

  • We can rest assured that ComingZune.com will forever belong to Microsoft - even when the Zune has indeed been introduced. (Hey - maybe Microsoft will forever use ComingZune.com as a way to launch new Zune players? Who knows! )
  • Zune.net belongs to Microsoft and will be the home of the new Zune for now!

[Check it out via ZuneMax.com]

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