Buying Guide to Online Music Services
Kazaa and other free services
Positives
The benefit to Kazaa and other free services are obvious; they cost no money to use. You can also use Kazaa or pretty much any free service to put music on any portable mp3 player that you want
Negatives
The downside to these services is equally obvious. Most of the material on these services is illegally attained, and many people have been getting sued for using these services because they are violating copyrights. Kazzaa in particular also offers no organizational features that allow you to easily manage large amounts of music. If you have a large music collection and decide you want to listen to it be prepared to spend a couple of minutes scrolling and scrolling trying to find the one song you want to listen too. Your best bet if you download from Kazaa would be to use Windows Media Player or I-Tunes to manage your music.
I-Tunes
Positives
I-Tunes is considered by many to be the premium music service. It is top of the line in every category. It allows endless ways to organize your music, and it offers countless more products and services that can be used. It can be used to organize Apple music or free music from other programs like Kazaa. And I-Tunes doesn’t stop with just music. They offer TV shows that can be purchased for a couple dollars an episode (not that much of a bargain but better than purchasing the DVD for 60 dollars) and for some things they even offer free podcasts.
Negatives
The main drawback to I-Tunes is the incredible expense that is involved. I-Tunes charges almost a dollar a song for its collection. For people who have even small music collection of a couple hundred songs using I-Tunes will be expensive. For people who have large music collections, I’m sure paying fifteen to sixteen hundred dollars for ownership of music is not a very happy thought.
Another drawback to I-Tunes is that you can only transfer songs to an I-Pod and nothing else. This is a very significant factor when deciding what you want to do with your music. Inflaming this issue is that I-Pods are very expensive and typically more expensive than similar products made by other companies.
Even for a serious music collector shelling out two hundred dollars for an I-Pod and then fifteen hundred for the music is a little much. Even though the I-Pod offers the best collection of music of any paying service, and other non-music content that non of the other services offer the extraordinary limitations and expense that Apple places on its service makes it unattractive to some people especially people who don’t want to pay for an I-Pod.
Rhapsody
Positives
Rhapsody is a relatively affordable music subscription service. For $14.95 you can download, play burn and put music on mp3 players. In order to have the use of the music you must keep paying your subscription. Rhapsody has a very large selection of music and even has music available for purchase at the price of seventy-nine cents per song. Just like other subscription services you have a slightly limited choice for mp3 players that are compatible with the service but you still have a large choice. You also have access to several free customizable internet streaming radio stations for a couple of more dollars per month. Overall Rhapsody offers an affordable choice for music subscription with a large selection of music and a good interface that allows for easy organization.
Negatives
Rhapsody is a pretty solid all around service but it has its drawbacks. Even though Rhapsody has a large selection of music, you will find an occasional song is either not available for subscription use, to be burned or used with a portable player or not available at all. These copyright issues are the main problems with Rhapsody.
Yahoo Music
Positives
I myself personally use Yahoo Music, and too be honest the only reason I use yahoo is because it’s the cheapest. You are able to download all the subscription music you want and listen to it for $4.95 a month. This price is astoundingly low and it’s pretty amazing that they can actually make money charging such a low price. For $9.99 cents a month you can also transfer your music to a compatible music player. The selection of music is also very good for yahoo music especially with major artists.
Negatives
When you use the yahoo music you will begin to see what type of corners they have to cut to charge such low prices. First of all the program has quite a few bugs and is prone to crashing. It also has a basic at best organization interface. The program sorts songs only by artist. It also has a little less choice in terms of compatible mp3 players.
Napster
Positives
Again you have a good selection of mainstream music, and you pay a reasonable price on par with Rhapsody
Negatives
One big problem with Napster is that you don’t get a good selection of obscure music from independent artists. Another big problem with Napster is that for a lot of mp3 players it is very difficult to get them to work with Napster subscription music. The player will frequently crash when connected to certain players, and is just in general a volatile peace of software that will cause you many headaches. I would personally stay away from Napster and go with Rhapsody or Yahoo.
