We at the Digital Music Eye offer to impart our knowledge and wisdom to help you along the way to joining the 21st century of music appreciation, and hopefully save that nerd from having to do your research for you or get his head stuffed into a garbage can.

So....here is some startup advice for the digitally challenged.

First, of course, you need to select the mp3 player that is most suitable to your needs. As in, how much mp3 or digital media (.wmv, .wma, .ogg, .aac etc) you would like to store on your device, management of these files, transfer speed and compatibility with the other digital media services available. Also, many mp3 players have the ability to temporarily store and transfer data files from PC to PC.

Next, you need to choose an online music service so that you can fill your lovely little digital media device with songs, podcasts, video files and more! There are several legal non-p2p services available that will be reviewed in this article, but p2p is still the reigning source of music downloads worldwide, so you may want a technical knowledge of this method as well as a history of its evolution. Read this article for an overview of how p2p software works.

For indie music downloads, check out TuneFlow.com or eMusic, and for a great to-the-point rank of the major services read over this article from WIRED.com

The reigning online music stores are Napster (now I know that's familiar to you), Rhapsody, Yahoo! Music, eMusic, MusicMatch and iTunes. There are a few others in operation and many ore on the way, but for now we'll concentrate on the forefathers.
Apple Computer, Inc. opened the digital music frontier with its iPod mp3 (actually mp4 or AAc) player and concurrent iTunes music store. The mp4/AAC format is more compact than mp3 format and sounds just as good so you can store more music on your computer or digital music player. iTunes is fast becoming the best choice for downloading music. It tops the others with its selection of songs, audio books, videos and radio programs. It syncs with podcasting which is a nifty new way to download and listen to radio shows on the go (more on this in later articles), and has an easy to use music management software that allows cd ripping, burning, creating playlists, song shuffling and more. Unfortunately, although iTunes is compatible with both Mac and Windows, it only works with the iPod digital music player at this time. However, Steve Jobs has just announced that iTunes and EMI will soon offer a DRM-free selection of music. With this gigantic step we hope the other members of the RIAA will soon have to follow suit and revolutionize our listening experience!
The iTunes service is free to download. Individual songs are .99 cents and you can purchase entire albums as well as partial albums. iTunes (as well as the other music subscription sevices) also supports iD3 tags, which carry information about the song title, artist, album,genre etc. For more information on iTunes and system requirements go to iTunes Store Music

Yahoo's Music service also has a wide selection of songs

Next -->