I Love the Podcast Subscription Feature of the Zune

Last year, when I interviewed for the job I have now at Microsoft, I had an initial tech screening with my now-colleague Architect Evangelist, Jit Ghosh.  After answering all of his questions, he asked if I had any questions for him and I did.  This was just after the first wave of Zunes came out to a less-than phenomenal launch.  I asked him to "evangelize the Zune".  He answered by talking about the platform and technical underpinnings of the device but admitted that it would be difficult.  Now that I have one of the devices (a second generation 8GB one), I am getting real delight out of it and would have no problem at all talking about its merits.  Let me tell you about just one feature, podcasts:

Being a big fan of public radio, I love the podcast feature of my new Zune.  I have subscribed to a number of podcasts in the Zune Marketplace, including Selected Shorts (short stories), On the Media, Science Friday, and Garrison Keillor:

The cool thing about subscribing to podcasts with the Zune is that you can configure it to subscribe the newest episodes and remove older episodes that you've already listened to:

The Zune software automatically manages the downloading and synchronizing and As soon as I hook the device back up to my computer, It downloads the latest podcasts, and removes the ones I've already listened to.  I just listened to "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" on Selected Shorts and I loved it.  You can find it on the Paws and Claws podcast on the Selected Shorts Podcast Series in the Zune Marketplace.  And its free!