4 1.2 default 0.02 700 http://www.grovo.com/asset/gplayer/skins/default/watermark.png Helvetica, Arial, Sans Serif Over the last century, the world of music has seen a great deal.

Alan Freed, Elvis, Little Richard and Les Paul invented rock n’ roll.

Jimi Hendrix lit his guitar on fire on stage.

The Beatles released the White album and Woodstock was held in upstate New York, giving birth to the music festival, as we know it today.

Time changes things, and so does the Internet.

The model for discovering, listening to, buying, storing your music and finding shows has completely changed with the advent of the Internet and online music.

In 1993 MP3’s were invented--an encoding and compression format to create digital audio files.

This facilitated the transfer and playback of audio files onto digital audio players.

It was at this time that a website called the Internet UnderGround Music Archive launched in Santa Cruz, California to provide a venue for independent artists to share their music and communicate with their audience--thereby routing the traditional avenue of record labels.

By 1998 artists could register a free URL and web page on the site, giving birth to the musician’s online presence as we know it.

That same year, as the MP3 gained in popularity, a website called Ritmoteca emerged from the dot-come bubble, and offered a window for the purchase of music online, foreshadowing the sound of things to come.

Then, of course, came Napster, pioneering online peer-to-peer file sharing in the form of MP3 music files.

Which, at its height had some 25 million users downloading over 80 million songs...and catapulting the music industry into the throes of the digital revolution. Then Steve Jobs came along and figured it all out for the music loving world by offering 99 cent songs in MP3 format through the iTunes Music Store.

Jobs and Apple grounded distribution agreements with all 5 major record labels prior to the launch of the now called iTunes Store.

What’s more is Jobs and Apple paired iTunes with easily the best and most sustainable portable digital music player the world had ever seen, the iPod.

Folks could buy digital music from the iTunes Store, download it and then inject it into their iPods and listen to it...wherever they go. Endless audio permutations proliferated the now-illuminated road ahead.

Seemingly overnight iTunes became largest music retailer in the United States.

Nowadays the path to music discovery, streaming, purchase, playing, storage and finding the live shows you need to get to is paved by some key multi-faceted products.

Learn about them on Grovo.com. MP3A compressed sound file type typically used to transfer music over the Internet or store it for playback on portable devices.Archive1. A function in email applications that allows users to move messages out of their inbox and into virtual storage;
2. a collection of saved documents or records.URLUniform resource locator; the address of a website on the Internet typically beginning with http:// and ending with .com, .net or .org.File sharingThe practice of distributing files between computers over a network.Download1. A file transferred from one computer or server to another via a network or the Internet (noun);
2. to transfer files between computers (verb).IPodApple portable media player that plays digital music files.202Music2437What is Online Music? standalone11111high