I thought today I'd have a look at this MSN Music UK tab in Windows Media 11 today. Why? Because I have an Xbox now and I thought it would be great to download music/entertainment from MSN Music instead so I could stream it to my Xbox which is connected to my surround sound system what a great idea right?

The thing that hit me straight away when using MSN Music was it really wasn't iTunes. It didn't come close, its as though MSN just thought about their own convenience when setting up this option in Media Player. MSN Music is basically a website rendered within Media Player with hooks into the player. A bit like iTunes but so badly done. The first thing I did when I entered it was type in the name of the song I was searching for in the search bar just above the MSN Music logo. This of course was the wrong choice as it started to search through MSN Live Search. Why on Earth have this functionality here where you are trying to sell music? What I should have done of course was go further down the page to the Music Search box's. Before I could do anything though I had to install a plug-in for MSN music urrrghhh why? Microsoft have such great ideas but you can't help but think the usability department is out on a constant lunch break most of the time.  Looking at the page I saw an option for movies and naturally thought I could download some movies that I could watch on my PC....wrong! This was just the MSN movie section that contained reviews about movies... Argghhh. Now I understand what Microsoft is trying to do with Windows Media player. Its a market place for you to select the music or video provider of your choice. The problem is how it does this and a distinct lack of clarity and usability. Anyway that said MSN Music does appear to be good value for money when it comes to their streaming juke box player. Which only costs £5 a month and you can listen to what ever you want.