How To Buy Music Online For Your iPod!

By Peter Burke

Obtaining music to put on your iPod is fairly straightforward. You have four options.

Buy music at your local retail store.

Ironically many people who use iPods still purchase CDs from the local music retail store and then use iTunes to download the music onto their iPod. You will tend to find that this occurs in iPod users who are over 50 (according to research in a popular UK music magazine from a survey conducted in 2007). It seems as though many people who are not used to new technologies prefer this method. It will be several years yet before this age group becomes more familiar with the ability to download online and at the same time feel secure about doing so.

However, let's face it, most people who have music CDs will have downloaded their discs already and then have purchased music online through the various available sites.

Buy music on a pay per tune basis.

This is by far the most common method of purchasing music for the iPod. The benchmark has been set with the iTunes interface which is an incredibly versatile piece of software that has been produced to make the use of the iPod seamless. Users of iTunes will be familiar with organising playlists, downloading music and music videos. In addition the download speed is extremely fast (providing the user has a DSL line). However, there is a cost to this and each tune is usually $.99. It would be interesting to know how much of this fee per download goes to the artists and how much goes to Apple! However, as iPod users we're more interested in obtaining music for the iPod and as much of it as possible.

The major benefit of using a download interface is the ease of use that downloading online presents, especially if you have high-volume downloads. Some of the P2P sites that offer "free" music have horrendous download speeds and extremely poor quality-so therefore shouldn't really be considered.

Buy music online with a subscription.

Subscription sites are becoming more popular-competition is a wonderful thing! However, many of the sites do not provide good value for money. The reason for this is that the cost is often between $10 and $15 a month which doesn't sound a lot but means that you have to download at least 15 tunes a month to break even compared to the cost of iTunes or other similar download sites. So, unless you use the subscription to its full extent you're wasting your money.

Another thing, about subscription sites is that they often do not provide good quality downloads and many of the download speeds are up to 200 times slower than iTunes. It's one thing to have a high speed DSL connection on your side but is entirely another thing if the download source has a modem speed of less than 53 kb per second. You would be surprised as to how common this is.

Consider an unlimited download site.

This is probably the best value option on how to buy music online for your iPod. There are a few sites in the market that are specifically tailored for downloading music and other types of files for the iPod. In addition to music theses sites provide the ability to download music videos, movies and even games-so they are incredibly versatile in the choice that they offer the consumer. A major benefit of the reputable sites is that files which are ready to download are virus free. Any user of P2P sites will understand what I'm talking about.

The best option to go for is to purchase an unlimited membership to one of the sites. Full membership should cost no more than $35 and should include as a minimum a great choice of current and old music, TV shows, movies and games. You will also find that many of the sites provide great conversion software so as you can if you want to view or listen to all types of files on your iPod. Many people don't realise that many of the files that they have downloaded will not work on the iPod until the files have been converted.

How to buy music online for your iPod has never been easier and provided you do a little bit of research you should be able to choose the best option that suits you.

To find out more about how to buy music online for your iPod go to iPod-Download-Zone.com to get an independent review of the best iPod music and music video sites currently on the market. In addition you will find helpful and informative articles on other aspects of your iPod. Find out more here! Peter Burke is a regular contributor of articles with the aim of being able to inform and help people with specific problems! Peter Burke MBA has been writing Journals and Articles for academic publications for over 7 years and is Managing Director of a Consulting Company in the United Kingdom.