www.mediamaster.com

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First up is a new offering which lets you upload your own tracks from your PC and listen to it online from any other computer with a broadband internet connection.

This is not a new idea, but MediaMaster has given it a neat makeover. Though its aim is to be a commercial service, at the moment there is no limit to how much of your collection you can upload and then stream - for absolutely nothing.

After a free and quick registration, you get taken to an unfussy main screen, which allows you to manage the service.

Even before you add music you will see they have started you off with some classical numbers - a classy touch. You upload your own material from either a simple interface, which deals with individual files, or an advanced interface where you can import entire folders.

You can even choose to tweak the upper upload rate to ensure it is not eating too much bandwidth. Bear in mind only unprotected tracks can be imported and for legal reasons they cannot be re-downloaded again - only streamed.

When you playback you will notice similarities with desktop music managers - like the ability to rate tracks and create playlists.

MediaMaster even analyses the metadata and fetches album art, which you can also see in the library view - missing chunks from the cover means you have not imported the entire album.

There is no support at the moment for importing playlists and ratings, though this is coming soon. A lovely touch is the ability to stream your playlists or what you are listening to now with your friends - they receive the link and play it through their desktop media player.

And in the spirit of Web 2.0, you can even create a widget of your collection to embed in blogs or social networking site.

NITENDO