Internet making it easy for music fans to stay tuned in

By Joseph De Avila , The Wall Street Journal

Monday, March 10, 2008

Kenyatta Berry kept up with music as a teenager by watching videos on MTV and reading music magazines. Now Berry, a 35-year-old marketing director living in Los Gatos, Calif., says she doesn't follow music as she once did.

Sure, there are a slew of options online for finding and listening to music, but "it is a bit overwhelming," she says.

The music industry has been transformed since Berry's teenage years. While total album sales continue to plummet - down 15 percent last year from 2006, according to Nielsen SoundScan - music is more ubiquitous than ever, thanks to digital technology.

Sales of digital-music tracks from services like iTunes and Amazon.com continue to be a bright spot for the record industry.

Last year, 844.2 million tracks were purchased, up 45 percent from 2006, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The shift to the Web hasn't caught on with people who, like Berry, think they don't have the time or the technical know-how to track new music online.

But in fact, to reach casual fans, several Internet sites have developed easy, typically free ways for music lovers to cut through the clutter: music search engines, music-streaming sites and music-based social networks. Some musical artists are using these sites to connect with their fans on a more personal level, too.

For those looking for ways to reconnect, here are some options:

Simple streaming music

"There is such a glut of wonderful opportunities nowadays," says Richard Factor, a 62-year-old electronics-industry executive living in Kinnelon, N.J. An avid psychedelic-music fan, Factor discovered a 1960s band called Plastic Cloud using Pandora, an Internet radio station - basically a music-streaming Web site that plays songs based on listeners' preferences.

Pandora and Jango, for example, are commercial-free sites that let users enter an artist's name or a song title into the search bar on the Web site. Then the site creates a "radio station" that plays similar types of music. So type Miles Davis into one of these sites, and you might hear selections from Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. You can rate songs to fine-tune what type of music is played.

Since these are free streaming sites, users can't look up a specific song title and play it. And while the songs can't be downloaded, both sites have links that will take you to Apple Inc.'s iTunes or Amazon.com Inc. to buy a particular title.

Launched late last year, Jango was created for both music aficionados and casual fans, says Dan Kaufman, Jango's chief executive. You can dive deep into the site if you want or "you can be lazy and still get a great experience," he says.

Music search engines

Music search engines work like Google and Yahoo, except that they look specifically for audio recordings on Web sites, including personal pages and blogs. Examples include SeeqPod, Songza and SkreemR, all of which are free.

They're not the best way to discover new music, but they can help you find a song you haven't heard in a while or a title someone recommended to you. For example, punch Norwegian Wood into the search engines to get a list of links to the Beatles' song, as well as versions by other artists. Click on the title to play it instantly on your computer.

Sarah Perez, a 32-year-old blogger who writes about technology from Tampa, Fla., likes to listen to a song using Songza before she decides if she wants to buy it.

"By being able to listen to entire tracks, you can make more- informed purchase decisions when you're actually ready to buy music," Perez says.

The search engines seek out songs available in digital formats on Web sites. Not all the songs have the best sound quality - some are recordings taped by a concertgoer.

Social-networking sites

A number of music sites are integrating social-networking functions into their sites to share music. Some of the biggest players are imeem, Last.fm, iLike and MyStrands. These sites feature libraries of music and videos that users can browse through and play. Some songs are available only in 30-second snippets, while others are full-length recordings.

Like Facebook, the popular social-networking site, users at these music sites can set up profile pages, add a photo, tell a little bit about themselves and declare their musical tastes. They can also make "friends" with other site users.

Simple music sites

Streaming music

* pandora.com

* jango.com

Search engines

* SeeqPod.com

* Songza.com

* SkreemR.com

Social networking sites

* imeem.com

* Last.fm

* iLike.com

* MyStrands.com