Digitally downloaded music has become as talked about as the internet itself. Record labels and software designers have gone to war over it, musicians herald it as the best thing since beer and groupies, and online music merchants just sit back and wait for the dollars to roll in. In most cases, digital downloads are synonymous with either MP3 or Liquid Audio music files. But anyone not connected to the internet through a TI, DSL or cable line (i.e., most of us) will tell you that there’s a dark side to these formats-they can be slow. With each song taking about four minutes to download through a standard modem, accumulating any sort of interesting music collection becomes a painful study in boredom.

But there’s a light at the end of the bit stream: namely, “streaming” internet music. Working much like a conventional radio, streaming music is broadcast from a server, or a personal computer, directly to your computer. This means you can listen to the music immediately, without waiting for large and time-consuming downloads that take up space on your hard drive.

But the big questions remain: Where are these internet “radio stations”?

And how do you listen to them?

Enter Live365.com, a website that provides thousands of free streams every minute of every day. These streams are broadcast by other internet users and fall into every musical genre imaginable. Which means that, unlike a conventional radio, streaming internet music lets you spend more time listening to tunes and less time twisting dials. Your all-yodel station is just a click away. Once activated, streams continue to run even after you’ve quit your browser and cranked up a game of Quake (which suddenly sounds better when accompanied by the music of hair-metal bands).

But the real power of Live365.com comes when you stop listening and start broadcasting. Suddenly, in a few simple steps, anyone can make like Christian Slater in Pump Up the Volume. Live365 lets you upload and broadcast your own streaming MP3 loops or, for those using a PC, broadcast live, complete with DJ banter. Up to 365 people can tap into your stream at a time, and the software (provided free by Live 365) makes it simple. Heck, Live365 even pays all music licensing fees.

Listening to music is simple, with Live365.com walking you through each stage of the set-up (downloading a player and configuring you browser). Once the software is in place, you can find music by selecting a genre or by keying in a word search and then selecting the desired stream. While the graphics aren’t fancy, the site is clear and easy to navigate-which is a thousand times more important than pretty pictures.

Once a stream is activated, your browser automatically launches the music player, along with a pop-up window that tells you the name of the station, the title of the song being played, how many people are listening to the same stream and who is doing the broadcasting. Email links are provided (so you can tell the DJ how good-or bad-he’s doing) as well as links to music retail sites. If you like what you’re hearing, the CD is just a click away. Instant gratification is the underlying foundation of the internet, and Live365.com delivers it.

Users with a PC and a static internet connection (either TI, DSL or cable) can take advantage of Live365’s “Studio365-Live” software, which allows live streams of MP3s or any audio source plugged into the computer’s microphone input. For those who have slower connections, Macs or no time to spend broadcasting live, Live365 offers “Studio365”. This feature lets broadcasters upload as much as 365 megabytes of MP3s, which are then streamed out as a loop by Live365.com. This is, by far, the easiest option and the one that most Live365 members take advantage of. Again, Live365 will walk you through both processes, and it won’t cost you a penny.

Live365.com is a musician’s dream, offering opportunities for self-promotion previously unheard of. Obviously, having your own broadcast station makes it easy for listeners to hear your music. But take it a step further-how about live concert broadcasts? With just a laptop computer and an internet connection, anyone can have their own Hard Rock Live. And Live365 plans on catering to their musician-members by providing money-making opportunities: future plans include adding merchandise sites where musicians can sell their music, T-shirts, and other promotional goods online. If listener A buys band B’s CD after listening to DJ C’s stream, both the band and the DJ (and Live365) share in the profits, with a fair split for all. This is certainly an improvement over the financial rape that bands potentially suffer at the hands of record labels and CD distributors.

So, what’s the downside? Well, truthfully, there isn’t one. Granted, music sometimes “Skips” in the middle of streaming, but this is a function of bandwidth more than anything else, and as internet connections become faster, this will cease to be an issue. Live365.com has put a lot of effort to make streaming internet music as painless as possible, and it looks like they’ve succeeded.

One word of warning: Live365.com is as addictive as crack, and like that famous street drug, can lead to job-loss if indulged in too often. Of course, that leaves more time for live broadcasts, so who really cares?