The Birth of Digital Music
In 1997, I found Napster and rediscovered music that I hadn't listened to in years. I admit it was a lot of fun using this new product...and then morality stepped in. Sure I owned some of the CDs and they were stacked up nicely at home in my shelf next to the stereo. But I could put these little files on my computer and listed to just about anything I wanted by clicking the mouse.
A few years later, Apple released the iPod. Sure there were other music players out there, but none had the attention to detail nor the storage space. The real joy of the iPod was the Firewire cable connecting it to the Mac. When you plopped the iPod into the dock, iTunes would open up and start synchronizing all of the music that you loaded into your computer since the last time you docked. The fast firewire uploaded an entire CD's worth of music in minutes and the battery charged from the same cable.
Hours of shuffling my collection of 400 CDs and my entire library slipped into my pocket. Soon I realized it would be easier to get a second iPod dock and plug it in to the stereo and play all my music from the iPod. The only time I touched a CD was when I bought a new one and uploaded it into the computer. In fact, they are all still in the box from the last time I moved.
A few more years and Apple dove completely into the digital music business when it opened the iTunes Music Store. This revolutionary combination of computer, pocket-sized music player and on-line music store allowed everyone to fill their desire to hear that special song in 3 minutes and 99 cents.
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