Napster

            One of the hottest new trends in technology is the music provider Napster. This service provides a free and easy way for people to download their favorite songs. Napster has become extremely popular with the teenagers of this generation. The ease with which one uses the service makes it very user friendly. By being very interested in music, I have become very familiar with this service.
             Napster was founded in May of 1999 by Shawn Fanning(www.Napster.com). He created the site so that people could "share" music files with each other. The files, called mp3's, can be downloaded from the site in anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes. The best part of the service is that it does not cost anything to download these music files. Since the files are "shared" by numerous users on one easy-to-use interface, they can be downloaded by anyone with access to the Internet. There are several other music sharing communities besides Napster. Scour Exchange, Imesh, Audio Galaxy, and CuteMX are a few of these other sites. Napster is by far the most user-friendly. .
             I first used Napster at the beginning of 2000. Since then, I have downloaded about one thousand separate music files. I have found that I can find almost any song on Napster if I know the name of the song or the artist. Finding a song is a very easy process. First, you use the search page to find the song. You type in the name of the song and the name of the artist and push the find button. The service then searches its database for matches of the song name or artist and displays the results. You then pick one of the files from the list of the results and click on it. It then begins to download onto the hard drive of your computer. When the file is complete, the song can be found in the library folder. The songs that have been downloaded are listed in alphabetical order, so they are very easy to find. The songs can even be listened to through the service Napster provides.