Napster, the same business that started as just a vehicle for peer-to-peer music exchanges, has now become the owner of the largest music catalog on the Internet, with over seven million titles.  While it is not free, as it was in the wild days of the early Internet, it is still an amazing bargain.  The site provides what is widely regarded as the greatest bargain for music fans with a three month introductory subscription and renewals at the same low rates.  Three months will give you a good sense of what the service has to offer, and I strongly suspect that you’ll decide to renew.  A lot of people have maintained a membership for years.

For a remarkably low price, you receive five download credits and special bonus download credits as a subscription bonus.  Included in the plan is the reason that most people subscribe in the first place–unlimited (!) streaming music.  You can listen to the entire catalog’s of your favorite artists or, if you prefer, the entire albums of a variety of artists.  There are also over a thousand interactive, genre playlists.  They even have a streaming radio station.

The downloads you choose can be played on any MP3 compatible device, including Ipod, Zune and many others.  In fact, if your cell phone has this option, you can even carry the music you’ve downloaded from Napster on that, as well.

With your three month membership downloads, you receive unrestricted rights, so you can put your music onto your various players.  You can even burn a CD for yourself.

There is a huge list of musical genres.  If your tastes are similar to mine, you can choose from a lot of different genres, but if your tastes are more specific, you will certainly find your favorite genre.  Among those genres are rock, pop, classical, R&B, musical soundtracks, Christian, jazz, comedy, and the list goes on.

All of this is just $15 for the three months of delightful musical saturation at Napster.com.  Face it, that’s cheaper than a fast food lunch for three.

One of the best things about the Internet is that you can now download music. Oftentimes for free, and you can add it to your MP3 player in just seconds!There are some good free sites, but be careful when downloading from a free site. The quality is not always great. Beware, sometimes those “free” sites include spyware or malware with your download. I recommend BeeMP3.com for great free music downloads.
The music is very good quality.

It may be necessary to pay for music if you want the quality and peace of mind. Amazon has a terrific selections and the price is not too bad, $0.79 to $0.99 per song.

(This article is only about MP3 players, downloads, Windows-based products and information. Sorry Apple users!)!)

There are other free sites out there that I have used to download music, but they are not quite legitimate. One, of the sites I like, is always getting into legal trouble with their government for copyright issues (the site is based somewhere in Europe). I am a somewhat wary of recommending or linking to any questionable sites.

My recommendation for the best MP3 player on the market today is the Zune from Microsoft. There are plenty of MP3 products on the marketplace today. There are products that are cheaper than the Zune, but they just do not have the capacity nor the ease of use that the Zune offers. The Zune is targeted to people who want to amass a huge music library on their computer and their portable player as well. I have maxed out my 80 GB Zune. In order to download more songs, I’ve had to delete some files. Maybe next Christmas I’ll get the 120 from Santa.

If you are a bit confused with all the technical jargon, I’ve written an e-book about how to create a digital music library on your computer and on your MP3 player. My e-book offers a truly easy way to collect a state-of-the-art digital music library that is inexpensive, portable and takes up very little space.

Happy music downloading, enjoy!

But Microsoft’s introduction of the Zune, the company’s MP3 DMP player, Apple is facing some serious competition.The Zune released in late 2006.  Since then, the Zune has really taken off.The Zune and the ipod are similar in price and include many of the same features.  However, there are some things that the Zune has that the ipod does not:

Below are the list of features supported by Zune and not ipod (based on a comparison of a 30GB Zune and a 30GB ipod:

• Landscape video
• Preloaded Audio and video
• Built in FM tuner
• Social networking
• Custom background

In addition, the Zune features file sharing and Wi-Fi (wireless) support.  Every Zune will have the ability to wirelessly share and play songs, videos, and pictures with other Zunes. The 30 GB Zune can store up to 25,000 photos, 100 hours of video, or 7,500 songs.  Microsoft will definitely take a big chunk of the MP3 player market form Apple, especially since a lot more people use a PC than a Mac, so that may be a big factor in how well the Zune performs in the marketplace.

I highly recommend the Zune, I have an 80GB and I love it!  I’ve already maxed out all 80 GBs of space.  Recently, Microsoft introduced a 120 GB Zune

Other nifty features include the subscription-based Zune Marketplace, which allows you to access an online database of new music without having to download it first to your computer. This makes Zune the first real portable media device. The other important aspect of the Zune Marketplace is the ability to download as many songs as you want for a flat fee.

For more information about product reviews, check out the Nostalgia Guy Music website.