Merge

Last week I talked about how we go about finding new music, and it made me think about how we actually listen to music.  A lot has changed.  I wasn't a big music fan during the 8 track era, granted I was two, but I was around for vinyl and cassettes.  The thing that strikes me the most is how efficient things have gotten.  Back in the day of the cassette tape, you'd listen to the entire side of an album and hope that you had a really cool tape player that automatically flipped to the B side when ready.  If you didn't want to listen to the entire side, searching for a song was hit or miss.  You could fast forward, but what was the likelihood you would land directly on the song you wanted. 

Next came CD's, which were an incredible upgrade.  You could skip tracks with ease, shuffle or repeat, the possibilities were endless.  Even the problem of listening to a different album was solved with the six disc changer. 

Then the MP3 revolution came along, followed closely by the iTunes phenomenon.  Out were the days of lugging 1,000 CD's around, in were the days of carrying thousands of songs in your pocket. 

Today it's the web revolution.  Pandora and Playlist.com allow you choose what you want to listen to, to an extent, where you want to listen to it.  Personally, I use Pandora on my laptop, my blackberry in my car, and through my wife's iPod touch when at home.   Expect iTunes to follow suit and move to the cloud fairly soon as well, hopefully enabling you to listen to your purchases anywhere. 

Bottom Line:  The web is creating incredible efficiencies in how we access and listen to music.  Count on very soon being able to access your entire music library from anywhere at any time, without carrying a 10 pound case of CD's.