Napster Downloads: Still Knack Enough For You?An Editor's Review:
In the case of iTunes, still the world's most elegant and popular digital music service by a landslide, Napster actually comes out as the better service in many, although not all, aspects, such as for example the quantity and scope of its features - the most notable being Napster To Go, which debuted as part of Napster 3.0 - and cost (much cheaper if you download as little as 10-15 songs per month). This section will cover our favorite features, plus some essentials, that make Napster's dent into the legal music downloads industry formidable. Some shortcomings abound, though, the most notable being that Napster downloads are not iPod compatible - easily solved if you purchase a Napster-compatible mp3 player (and there are many) - and not Mac compatible (not easily solved). The long and short? Although we still cannot wait for the day when all music downloads will be legally free - one step better than infamous P2P version that made napster.com BackgroundAfter Napster declared bankruptcy a year prior, Roxio bought their remains. This lead to the production of a subscription-based Napster 2.0.It has now grown into the 2nd most popular digital online music service for the best music downloads, far and away behind Apples' iTunes. It is estimated that the volume of downloads in iTunes is anywhere between 6-13 times greater than Napster's, and comprises around 80% of music downloads on the internet as of 2007. Despite this shortcoming, Napster could be poised to narrow the gap. AOL, who disposed of Musicnet in 2006, announced on January 12, 2007 that Napster will be the exclusive music downloads provider for their customers. Even brick-and-mortar Best Buy, facing stiff competition from online giants such as Amazon.com, purchased Napster on September 15, 2008 for $121 million. FeaturesThe quantity of features in Napster are in general greater than any other music downloads service. With total focus of Roxio, its owner, the future of Napster's sustaining their formidable challenge up against competing services looks bright. Read more on Features...You can also sort of get a jist of Napster's features using their tutorial, now conveniently located on the upper part of the home page, although the tutorial is not updated to coincide with their latest version, 4.5. Speaking of the latest Napster downloads version, the search bar is now placed in the top center, as opposed to the right where it was previously. The bigger change, however, with this bar is that when you search for the artist, the results will show the possible artists with that search term before you actually arrive at the tracks page. This lets you choose the artist you want without having all tracks from all artists with your search term cluttered onto one page. An even better change deals with the features in the artists page. It easier to search for features such as the biography - which in turn is very well laid out compared to its previous version - and tracks. Just like version 3.0, Napster downloads tracks are listed with the most popular first, followed by all all tracks that are available from the artist on Napster. Additionally, the top 5 albums, and the top 5 singles are listed in the top right. So it may seem that they are copying Rhapsody's idea. The difference is with Rhapsody you have to click on the available albums if you want to get an idea of all the other tracks, popular and not, available.
THE BEST TIME TO USE napster downloads
This would be during the first seven days upon starting the trial - download as many songs as you can during the trial.After the seven days, you can continue to "rent" songs (for the monthly fee) if you a) plan to download more than 5 songs per month (in the U.S. only) without burning most of them AND b) if the number of song downloads exceeds the number of CD burns by at least 5 compared with iTunes. |
