MP3 - Music From The Internet

Today the hottest word on the World Wide Web is "MP3". When you read a magazine, newspaper or online article MP3 is widely mentioned. MP3 is the most frequently used search term or keyword on the Internet today. But what is MP3? And what can it do for you?

The word MP3 stands for Motion Picture Experts Group, Audio Layer 3. Technically MP3 is an abbreviation for MPEG Compression Level 3. MP3 is just a method of compression, similar to ZIP files on a PC. MP3 files are about one-tenth the size of uncompressed audio files or WAV files. Each minute of music on a CD uses about 10 megabytes of space. Very few people would want to download a 40-megabyte file just to hear four minutes of music. MP3 compression however would take up about four megabytes of the same four-minute song, and would sound almost as good as the original 40-meg file. Four megabytes is still significant, but is a practical size for sending over the Net.

MP3 files can be played through any media player, which supports MP3 files. Today many media players support this format and are widely available, some free or for a minimal cost. The new version of Windows provides its own media player and this works fine to play your MP3 files. But there are many other media players and programs available on the Net today with more features. Napster, a large community of music lovers, is the more popular program used on the web to share MP3 between users and Win Amp is the industry standard media player used, both these items are free to use.

MP3 files can also be mobile with a device known as a MP3 player. You can download your MP3 files from your computer into a portable device (MP3 player) and enjoy your favourite music anywhere you go.

Where can you find MP3 files? Simply type in “MP3” into any of the search engines on the Net. These engines will return a large list of MP3 sites. Through these sites you can search for a specific song or artist and download your favourite tracks. The most obvious site on the Net today is http://www.mp3.com, where you will find ten thousands MP3 files from thousands of categories.

The development of MP3 has come a long way, now you can download and listen to your favourite music from your own hard drive; this is a larger feature of the World Wide Web. Try it yourself.

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