Idolator’s Instantly Outdated Guide To Internet Music: How To Build an MP3 Empire With EasyNews

Brian Raftery | November 15, 2006 2:14 am

Welcome to another installment of Idolator’s dumbed-down, semi-regular guide to finding the good stuff on the Internet. Today’s lesson covers EasyNews, which lets you search thousands of Usenet groups with ease. We know, we know: Sexy stuff. But trust us, it’ll be worth it.

STEP 1: Pony up We try to keep all of our IIOGTIM entries focused on freebies, but if you want to use EasyNews, you’ll have to pay a monthly charge of $9.98; it covers 30 days, or 20 gigabytes, whichever comes first. You can sign up, try it out for a week, and then decide to pull out if you don’t like it.

easynews1.jpg

STEP 2: Find your group EasyNews is essentially a tool for finding and managing MP3s via Usenet groups–those online discussion outlets that are painstakingly categorized under such nifty titles as alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.indie or alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.complete_cd (two of our favorites). You can locate groups based around your specific interests with just a few keywords: “Mp3,” “indie,” “rosie o’donnell,” etc. Once you find a few you like, they’ll be added to your favorites page, and if you pick active groups, you’ll wake up every morning to anywhere from 15 to 150 new albums.

easy2.jpg

STEP 3: Scan and Search The EasyNews interface may not be snazzy, but it is easy to use: If you’re looking for a certain song or artist, you can seek them out by searching individual groups, or you can just scroll through each group’s discussion listings until you find a record you want. EasyNews is especially good for new and recent releases, but you can also find watermark-free leaks, concerts, imports, and ample amounts of pornography. And while you can sometimes wait days or weeks for an unpopular torrent download to complete, files posted to these groups take just a few seconds to download.

easy3.jpg

STEP 4: Zip and Go Once you’ve found something you like, click the box on the left, press “Zip” on the bottom of the page, and a file of compressed MP3s will appear on your ZipManager page. Just hit “download,” and the files will be expanded and downloaded to your hard drive. The whole thing is insanely simple.

EasyNews Earlier: Idolator’s Instantly Outdated Guide To Internet Music