In its first year of business, cdnow.com made less than thirty dollars in profit. That’s very, very dismal for an e-commerce - especially one specializing in such popular categories as music, movies, and other high-tech entertainment media. Eventually the online shopping site got its act together, hitting the market with more advertising, frequent specials, and imported recordings - rare finds for many shoppers. With tons upon tons of dollars in sales annually along with more merchandise than any normal person could keep track of, cdnow.com has become one of the world’s most popular online stores for entertainment merchandise.

The layout of this site is simple, logical, and easy to follow. It has tons of features, including searches, saved information, and user account creation to make your shopping experience easier with each time you return to the site. It recommends products according to the personal likes and dislikes that you indicate, and also features a ’’wish list’’ - by accessing this URL, your friends and family can find the perfect gift for you thsi holiday season. Just e-mail the URL to them or, if they wish to surprise you, they can access cdnow.com’s site, search by your e-mail address, and find your wish list. Without revealing any personal information such as home address or full name, the site allows your loved ones to purchase merchandise and have it shipped to the address you specify when you create your account. This is the perfect gift idea if there ever was one! cdnow.com allows you to pre-order new releases, buy special bonus editions, and offers reviews and insight into almost every item they stock. This makes the shopping experience that much more pleasant - you never know what you will find about your favorite movie or musician when you look at cdnow.com! I have found bonus edition CDs, foreign imports, and artist discographies with just a couple of mouse clicks! Other extra features include language translations (currently it’s English and Spanish, along with a few others, but they’re apparently adding more as often as they can); artist profiles, and the option of switching between secure and fast servers. When browsing, go with the fast server so that it loads quicker. When actually placing an order, go with the secure server to protect yourself against fraud and online theft. This goes to show that the Internet is capable of custom-tailoring its sites and content depending upon the user - and that Web designers and site owners are doing more and more to make it possible for us to personalize even the biggest and most popular of sites. All of this is absolutely wonderful, but one of my absolute favorite features is the fact that I can add ’’favorite artists’’ to my preferences: Then CDNow will send me to a personalized screen listing the latest news bites regarding these artists or movies.

For example, when I added ’’Ani DiFranco’’ to my list, I immediately got a story about a cancelled David Letterman appearance back in July - old news to me, but since I had yet to add DiFranco to my favorite artists list, they decided it was worth sharing. Now that I have read the article, found it informative, and deleted it, I will never see it again - instead, I will get news articles as they are being released. However, sometimes the site seems to load a bit slower than it ought to. This is probably because of all the information it is collecting to deliver to you based on your custom-tailored preferences. It takes the feedback that you give and assembles a list of new music and videos for you to browse. This is a great piece of programming designed to sell you more than you ever bargained for, but it is highly effective. I for one don’t mind it, but some might consider it to be a bit annoying - not to mention ruthless where sales tactics are concerned. All in all, this site is absolutely spectacular. Besides all of the above points that I have mentioned, they have competitive prices - about the same as if you were to walk into your local record or department store. They offer edited and explicit versions of various records, thus putting your mind at ease when shopping for youngsters or ’’saintly’’ adults. As a bonus, you can read reviews of various merchandise written by other members such as yourself - giving everybody a ’’real’’ look at the product versus what the distributor wants you to believe.

So, the next time you want to find out more information about a musician or movie, buy a product, or simply browse an interesting and well-assembled site, surf to cdnow.com - it’s the greatest!