Concert List

Okay, it is time for me to finally say good bye to my portable disc player, and join the Internet and portable music revolution. Okay, the revolution isn’t so new any more, nor is my computer, but as I wade through the sea of options for how to download music, listen to and buy Internet 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 final few weeks trying to determine what’s best for my lifestyle, my wallet and my computer.
first thing I realized when searching all of the music services is that things seemed to work a lot smoother with a broadband connection (and most services seem to point that out from the get go). Just prefer my compact disc  Walkman, the time had come for me to lose my ancient dial-up connection to the Internet experience. It actually turned out to work in my favor as my cable company gave me a good deal on high-speed, and additionally threw in a discount on my existing expenses for cable TV.
Now that I has been “connected” at an acceptable speed to the Internet, I had to determine, what I has been trying to get out of the Internet music experience. After some intense melodious soul searching, I realized that the only thing the separated me from the perpetually hip is perhaps the categories of music I has been searching for, and the amount of time I wanted to invest Internet searching for music.
The guy who sits next to me has a 60 GB iPod, and is complaining that it is al most full. That is over seven thousand tunes. I do not know that I would even live long enough to listen to that a lot of tunes. My needs were easy 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 best for me, at least in the short term.
Next, what has been I looking for in my new Internet music experience? Did I want to listen to music on my computer, in my car or on my MP3 player? Yes to all three. Did I want to listen to the radio while I has been on my computer? Again, yes. Did I want to trade music with others Internet in a peer-to-peer Napster- prefer environment? Eh, that one scared me a little, and I decided that chance up my files to strangers made me feel dirt, so I put that one on hold.
My next prevent in determining how I would “music Internet ” has been price. I searched dozens of websites and services, but narrowed my sights to three of the large guys: AOL Music Now, 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 has been able to download tunes, listen to them while “offline” and burn them to compact disc  or move them over to my MP3 player for an additional cost per song. That seemed to be standard across most of the services. Music Now has been a follow up to the original AOL Music Net, which I actually prefer d better because it ran local ly on machine and the new Web-based Music Now takes much longer. AOL additionally has a partnership with iTunes, so you can be on AOL, but iTunes will launch and then you’re actually in the iTunes application. It is confusing. If I want to move my downloaded tunes to my MP3 player, the monthly cost jumps to $14.95 per month, and if I want to put them on a compact disc, I pay and additional 99 cents per track. This is too much money for me. I typically buy one or two compact disc ’s a month, and that would be cheaper than this Internet service. Not to mention you have to be an existing AOL member (more money per month) in order to even use the product. I am passing on AOL Music Now.
On to iTunes. Okay, so there is no monthly cost for iTunes. Love that. And I might purchase tunes for 99 cents per track. Love that too. But wait. I do not have an iPod, and iTunes has tunes 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 wonderfully inflexible, and I hate to be tied to one provide r, player and format. There’s additionally a limit to how you might share the tunes 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’s with unlimited access to over 1.3 million tunes. I do have to have pay the additional 99 cent cost if I want to burn to compact disc  or transfer to my MP3, but that’s the industry standard for paying the musician s, and the monthly cost is five dollars less per month than AOL. The music comes over in the more expansive ly assist ed MP3 format and the tunes are mine to rip transfer or share with my other Computers on my home network. prefer the other two, I might listen to live radio on my computer, but I prefer the freedom I get with Rhapsody Music Service. I am 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’ve already burned several compact disc ’s for my car, albeit with an older man’s twist on now ’s favorite s, and transferred those same tunes over to my little antiquated MP3 player for those long weekend walks.