Okay, it’s time for me to finally say nice bye to my portable disc player, and join the Web and portable music revolution. Okay, the revolution isn’t so new any more, nor is my PC, but as I wade through the sea of options for how to download music, listen to and buy Web tracks, I grow more eager to get my feet wet and eventually suit up to take the plunge. But I happen to be a bit more practical than that. So,I’ve spent a considerable amount of time over the last few weeks trying to determine what’s optimum for my lifestyle, my wallet and my PC.
first thing I realized when searching all of the music services is that things seemed to work a lot smoother with a cable connection (and the majority services seem to point that out from the get go). Just like my compact disc Walkman, the time had come for me to lose my ancient dial-up connection to the Online experience. It actually turned out to work in my favor as my cable company gave me a good deal on high-speed, and likewise threw in a discount on my existing expenses for cable television.
Now that I has been “connected” at an acceptable speed to the World Wide Web, I had to determine, what I has been trying to get out of the Online music experience. After some intense melodious soul searching, I realized that the only thing the separated me from the perpetually hip is perhaps the types of music I has been searching for, and the amount of time I wanted to invest Online searching for music.
The guy who sits next to me has a 60 GB iPod, and is complaining that it’s al the majority full. That is over seven thousand tunes. I don’t know that I would even live long enough to listen to that many tunes. My needs were simple r. I had an MP3 player still in the box from two Christmas’ ago, and it promised to hold over 500 tunes. That would be perfect for me, at least in the short term.
Next, what was I looking for in my new On-line music experience? Did I want to listen to music on my PC, in my car or on my MP3 player? Yes to all three. Did I want to listen to the radio while I was on my PC? Do not forget, yes. Did I want to trade music with others On-line in a peer-to-peer Napster- prefer environment? Eh, that one scared me a little, and I decided that opening up my files to strangers made me feel dirt, so I put that one on hold.
My next prohibit in determining how I would “music On-line ” has been price. I searched dozens of websites and services, but narrowed my sights to three of the large guys - AOL Music At this point, iTunes and Rhapsody Music Service ( provide d by Real Networks).
I already had AOL, so I signed up for their Music Now product for $8.99/month ( that’s in addition to their monthly cost as an ISP). I was able to download songs, listen to them while “offline” and burn them to CD or move them over to my MP3 player for an additional cost per song. That seemed to be standard across the majority of the services. Music Now was a follow up to the original AOL Music Net, which I actually prefer d better because it ran Regional ly on machine and the new Web-based Music Now takes much longer. AOL furthermore has a partnership with iTunes, so you can be on AOL, but iTunes will launch and then you are actually in the iTunes application. It is confusing. If I want to move my downloaded songs to my MP3 player, the monthly cost jumps to $14.95 per month, and if I want to put them on a CD, I pay and additional 99 cents per track. This is too much resources for me. I typically buy one or two CD’s a month, and that would be cheaper than this Web service. Not to mention you’ve to be an existing AOL member (more resources per month) in order to even use the product. I’m passing on AOL Music Now.
On to iTunes. Okay, so there is no monthly cost for iTunes. Love that. And I may purchase songs for 99 cents per track. Love that too. But wait. I do not have an iPod, and iTunes has songs in their proprietary MP4 format. Ugh. The cheapest iPod out there is around $99 (so much for no monthly fee), and it is not the model I would select. I prefer my MP3 player. If I already had an iPod, this can be the route I would go, but Apple tends be particularly inflexible, and I hate to be tied to one provide r, player and format. There’s likewise a limit to how you may share the songs on your home network. I feel prefer even though I own the song, I am being watched on what I do with it. Good bye large brother.
Rhapsody Music Service from Real Networks. So far they’re the least expensive. $9.99 per month and that is with unlimited access to over 1.3 million tunes. I do have to have pay the additional 99 cent fee if I want to burn to compact disc or transfer to my MP3, but that is the industry standard for paying the artists, and the monthly fee is five dollars less per month than AOL. The music comes over in the more broadly aid ed MP3 format and the tunes are mine to rip transfer or share with my other PC’s on my home network. like the other two, I can listen to live radio on my PC, but I like the freedom I get with Rhapsody Music Service. I’m not being watched, and the music is mine.
Now that I know how to download music and have chosen Rhapsody Music Service, I am on my way to joining the new world of portable digital music. I have already burned several compact disc’s for my car, albeit with an older man’s twist on today’s preferred s, and transferred those same tunes over to my little antiquated MP3 player for those long weekend walks.