MP3—Why is it So Hot?

Electronic News, August 23, 1999 by Peter Brown

San Jose

It's time to examine why the new MP3 music format has generated so much excitement over the past few months.

The MP3 phenomenon has spawned tons of interest. How much interest? Just last month the word "MP3" was more popular in search engines than the word "sex." This is the first time in years that something has beaten out "sex" as a search item. If MP3 is beating out Internet porn, you know either Jenna Jameson is doing something wrong or that this music format has seriously caught the people's eye. My gut feeling is it's the latter of the two.

Mike Paxton, an analyst at Cahners In-Stat Group, told me that part of the reason for the heat being generated by MP3 is that the format is purely Internet driven. That has the audiophiles burning with interest. Plus, Paxton said much of it is just hype and word of mouth. More people are just curious than are actually using MP3.

I have to agree with him. I seriously doubt that the interest is actually making most people go out and buy a player. While I bet there are some early adopters and music junkies, most are waiting to see if it really is a sustainable format or if it will be replaced by something else, such as Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media Audio format and Liquid Audio, just to name two.

But I think for the foreseeable future, MP3 will survive. I think it has strong roots among users already. Beyond that, the improvement of players and technology also will keep the format alive.

For example, Creative Labs' new MP3 player, the Nomad, comes with an FM tuner, unlike the current market leader, Diamond Multimedia's Rio, which does not. Also, Creative has introduced the Nomad desktop docking station, which allows users to just plug the Nomad into a base, download content and go. No need for serial connectors or to reconnect and disconnect the player from a PC. I think it will be little twists like this and no-PC-needed players that will help keep this market fresh, new and interesting in the coming years.

Peter Brown is senior editor for Electronic News. Write him at pbrown@cahners.com