The idea of writing a series like Human Technology provides me to reflect on my own journey through the IT age that is so central to my life. Technologies that have been featured so far on iRohit.com have today become so ingrained in our fabric that it’s easy to disregard the fact that till the mid nineties, most of us didn’t even know how a PC looked or what Windows was.

As I write this, the 4th chapter of my ongoing Human Technology series, I have to mention, none of the previous topics have brought a bigger smile on my face than this one. Before the BitTorrent, LimeWire, Kazaa; there was a lone pioneer, who unlocked the gates to a whole new world of sharing, sharing of music to be precise. Napster!

Napster was a brain child of 18 year old Shawn Fanning who I guess, was very passionate about his music, like most of us. But unlike most, he was brilliant with computers and coding. So he created a piece of software that would allow him and his colleagues to search and download the music of their liking from the computers on his college network. Little did he realize at that time that, what he had created was a piece of code that would change the music industry! We all are aware with the history of course. Napster changed the way we got our music. One was able to search for music on any computer located anywhere in the world and download it on to his computer. Foul, cried the music industry, but that didn’t stop this phenomenon of sharing music. Napster doesn’t even exist anymore. Well, definitely not in its original form. The original Napster has mutated into many things. Today’s it most successful form is the BitTorrent.

For many people, around the world, Napster provided a way to listen to music without actually owing it. It helped people to find that most obscure of artist in a jiffy. All it required was for some patient person to rip the cd and make mp3s of the album and share it. The copies then just grew in geometric progression. Today one can share not only music, but books, movies, software, documents, presentations, well almost any file on the computer. Of course there are legal suits going on, preventing such peer to peer sharing. But then that is a topic for another blog. The point of this blog is to acknowledge the place of Napster in Internet folklore. It added a whole new dimension to Internet. Music is one thing that unites the world, and sharing and finding music connected with the masses. As they say, ‘music is the food for our soul’ and I guess the entire world is hungry!

Incase you found this blog interesting, I would recommend you look at my other posts from the Human Technology series. Let me know which technologies touched you. I would love to hear you views.