Online music media: does it work?

It’s been a while since the time of buying tons of CDs is over. The MP3 players emerged in 1998, with the MPMan, from Saeham (South Korea). From then on, lots of companies such as Samsung, LG and Cowon started to launch their own devices with the same technology. Then came Apple with the iPod in 2001, and revolutionised the way of listening to Music. Today, almost every mobile phone is capable of playing music very well.

With all this devices, a problem arised: how to get this media? Answering that question came Napster in 1999, an independent online service that allowed people to share their mp3 files with one another. Of course this didn’t last long; Napster soon started to go through legal issues over copyright infringements and got shut down. Later companies followed the same purpose as Napster, like Limeware and Kazaa, but not with a different ending. Although they did not succeed, they changed a lot about the way of consuming music media. Along with the iPod, Apple launched the iTunes store, where people can buy the music. This appeared to be the future, but after the free downloading experience, people didn’t want that.

We’ve seen lots of services being created trying to solve this issue. Last.fm, for example. It is a website that works as an online radio and social media. Besides listening music, the users can share their interests, get recommendations based on what they usually listen and even get notifications about concerts and festivals. And it’s free! 

Along with Last.fm, there are Grooveshark, SoundClound, Deezer, Superplayer, Mflow, Radioplayer, Musicovery, MySpace and of course: Youtube. Although this last one does not have the purpose of sharing music, it is widely used for it. More recently some better-shaped services appeared. They are available not only in their websites, but also to be downloaded in smartphones (and in personal computers). They usually recommend playlists that the user can choose according to his mood, allow users to create their own playlists and share with their friends, people can follow each other (or follow artists) and etc. Two of the best ones available nowadays are Rdio and Spotify.

Not all of these options are totally free, some of them have limits on their free trials, but even the ones that are paid: the price is worth the service and the quality. So yes: online music media works, and it’s awesome.