Are you giving someone an iPod for Christmas this year? Ya think you’re getting one? I have a shuffle myself. The thing is –no matter what Pod you have, get or give, you may even be Pod-less; Mp3’s are here to stay and if you want to give the gift of music this season, consider going digital and give Mp3’s.
So many people, mostly young adults –younger than myself (sigh) have amassed huge libraries of music in Mp3 format. Sadly many of us older folks have meager stashes in comparison and still house most of our music on CDs that tower precariously in corners and stack mercilessly on shelves –largely inaccessible. Tapes got chucked long ago just for their extreme uselessness.
Moving on, we found Mp3’s and were saved from our stacks of disorganization and tedious sifting of mixed CD’s fraught with repetition and missing labels. We were saved. Now you can be too. Consider cutting to the chase and actually giving the gift of Mp3’s. You know that CD will just get squished into an MP3 anyway. Furthermore that CD will likely loose much of its weight, dropping song after song as the listener edits down the play-list to the songs he or she actually likes. So, I suggest you all check out the following links and browse the various user options and consider bundling that iPod with a gift certificate for Mp3 downloads.
I find iTunes is still the best for ease of use. You need to download the iTunes software from their site and then you’re off. They just do it better than anyone else. For .99 cents a song –I can’t really complain. However, I would prefer longer listening times for some previews. Often music doesn’t make it to the iTunes Canada site and is only available in the US. Apparently iTunes is going to start monkeying with their pricing and start offering some music for less than 99 cents and others for more. You can burn as many cds as you want with the music you purchase from iTunes. You can also put them on as many mp3 players as you wish –so gift away!
eMusic is a fairly new online music download site, but it is catching on fast. It’s a membership driven site. You become a member and can download any music you like from their site for free –once you pay your membership. They have various packages and the cheapest is $9.99 USD per month. For that you get 40 songs each and every month!! You can quit at any time with no penalty and their Mp3s are great quality. Their music selection is also very nice. You can try the service for free and receive 50 free downloads. I did this and I was very impressed with the selection and the quality. You have to give your credit card, but they will not bill you ever for the 50 free downloads, and they will not charge your card unless you specifically ask to become a member after your 50 free songs are used up. I figure you can easily share a membership with someone if you think you’ll not use 40 downloads each month. This is a great value and so far a good service from my experience. You can do whatever you like with the music you download from this service. Ho ho ho.
Free streaming! At Mp3.com you can review entire songs and albums for free. If you like what you hear you simply buy from iTunes or one of their associate online stores; or any store you like. This is a great idea. I often find that you don’t hear enough of the song on iTunes to really decide if you like it enough to buy it. Now you can stream the entire album –say while you work at your computer. Then once you are completely satisfied that you will like it, you can buy with confidence! Click the “free music” tab to see what I mean. I listened to the entire album:
Christmas Songs (2005) by Diana Krall while I wrote this. By the way –its very good! One point of mention, there is not a very large variety of free music here, especially if you compare this to the download options from iTunes or eMusic, but some is better than none and I still found value in this service. It will only grow larger with time.
Yes Yahoo is getting into the music biz. They are offering a kind of pay and play service. You buy a membership and listen to whatever you want when ever you want, but it cannot be downloaded or burned to a CD or gifted! This you can do for an additional fee of 79 cents a song. It’s early days for this service, so I’d wait to see how it pans out. Oh –and it’s not available anywhere but the US currently.
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