In 1988, the Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) was established by the ISO/IEC standardization body to develop useful application standards for the coded representation of motion pictures, related audio and the combination of the two. The first phase of its work was identified at MPEG-1 and the standard IS 11172 was released in 1992. The audio coding portion of the standard was IS 11172-3 and was designed to fit many audio applications. MPEG-1 Audio consisted of three modes, called Layers, with each succeeding layer increasing in complexity, which were identified Layer-1, Layer-2 and Layer-3. Layer-3 provided the highest level of sound quality at fairly low bit rates of 128 bits per second for a stereo signal.

MPEG-2 was developed primarily for video coding and included specifications for interlaced video signals for digital television. The MPEG-2 Audio standard was released in 1994 and included specifications for multi-channel audio coding which defined the 5.1 surround sound channel configuration, and also defined the coding for lower sampling frequencies of 16 kHz, 22.06 kHz and 24 kHz, which were added to the already existing sampling frequencies 32 kHz, 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz that were part of MPEG-1. Further development of the audio portions resulted in the MPEG-2 AAC standard which was finalized in 1997.

MPEG-3 was originally conceived to define the video coding for HDTV.  Later, it was determined that the tools the MPEG had developed for MPEG-2 could cover this requirement. The working group continued to refined multi-media standards which resulted in MPEG-4; this was meant to address the growing interaction of personal computers, TV and radio, and telecommunications. Streaming audio and video received on one's computer is an example of this. Other MPEG standards followed, but you are primarily interested in the rise of MP3.

MPEG Layer-3 was standardized in 1991, and was first used within Digital Signal Processing (DSP) based-codecs for use by studios for transmitting music links over ISDN phone lines. In 1995, MPEG Layer-3 was chosen as the audio format for the digital broadcasting system via satellite developed by World-Space. Over the next several years, the electronic distribution of music over the internet using this standard simply became known as MP3, for short. By 1999, the most popular search term on World Wide Web was .mp3 which was the suffix to the music file. 

The first MP3 player, the MP Man F10 Digital Stereo Player (shown above) was developed by Saehan Information Systems of South Korea and manufactured by Eiger Labs in 1998. It featured 32 megabytes of memory, good for about eight songs,  and sold for approximately $250.00 (U.S.) There was also the F20 model with increased memory and features. However, just months later, the Diamond Rio PMP300 (shown at left) hit the market and became a very hot Christmas gift item that year. It was reviewed in countless audio and digital media magazines and online. This player is credited with bringing MP3 to consumer's consciousness.  It also came with 32 Mbytes of memory. It proved much more popular because of its better industrial design, larger LCD and better arrangement of the controls.  The cat was out of the bag, as the saying goes, and other manufacturers had MP3 players in the works.

The first MP3 player to boast of more than 32 Mbytes of memory was the Rave MP2100 released to the consumer market in 1999. Manufactured by Sensory Science and sporting a curvilinear design that was easy to hold, the MP2100 came with 64 Mbytes of memory. The LCD also displayed the various functions of the player using icons, which preceded their application in PDAs like BlackBerry by years. It had an expansion slot that allowed increased memory to what was then a whopping 95 Mbytes. It also had the capability to do voice recording using a microphone mini-jack.

The growth of MP3 players at this time was also a factor of personal computers having the memory and processing power  to run audio decoding and encoding software, the widespread us of PC sound cards, the availability of CD-ROM and CD-Audio writers and fast Internet access, especially at colleges, universities and businesses. The market for MP3 players mushroomed in 1999. And there was another development that further pushed MP3 into the public spotlight.  That development was the peer-to-peer file swapping of audio files that became known as Napster.

Anyone who has any knowledge of music on the internet has heard about the saga of Shawn Fanning and his founding of the file swapping software company that grew into Napster. In 2001, just before the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA) went after Napster in a lawsuit involving violations of copyright law, Fanning was interviewed by Giancarlo Varanini of ZDNet.com.  File swapping of audio files at colleges and universities was nothing new in the late 1990s, but Shawn Fanning saw a way to bring some order to the chaos he saw while attending his college. He explained to ZDNet.com:

"I was at Northeastern University playing with the idea and getting feedback from my roommates, and then started drafting a really basic design idea. It was rooted out of frustration not only with MP3.com, Lycos, and Scour.net, but also to create a music community.  There really was nothing like it at the time.  We had good ideas for implementation, so we proceeded. I think it was an excellent solution to the reliability issues with existing search engines... But I think the point at which I realized it had serious potential was when download.com put us in the download spotlight. It was very early, and we were still like beta or alpha stage, and so we started receiving a ton of download. The server became overloaded, and that's when I realized that this had a huge market."

Fanning only had an inkling of how huge Napster would become, or the firestorm of controversy it would generate from the recording industry. However, Napster was a blessing to countless struggling smaller music groups and individual singers who could not get recording contracts but saw Napster as an ideal means of distributing their music and circumnavigating the controlled music distribution network. MP3 made this possible, but Napster turned out to be a threat to established artists who correctly saw what Napster was doing as illegal. The RIAA eventually succeeded in suing Napster and effectively put the fledgling company in San Mateo, California out of business. The lawsuit was all over the news networks around the world in 2003, and it appeared the RIAA had driven the last nail into Napster's coffin.  The company Roxio purchased the name and technology assets of Napster in a bankruptcy auction in November 2003. 

The next two years saw the expansion of MP3 players worldwide with the knowledge that paid downloads of music in MP3 format would be the norm.  Those online sources of downloadable MP3 files came back online as the Napster debacle brought into focus how it should be done. While there is no lack of "Free MP3 downloads!" seen all over the internet music sites, most businesses online operate on a paid-download basis. The rumors of MP3's death were greatly exaggerated. Even Napster was reborn in 2005 as is parent company Roxio rolled out the new format of purchasing music downloads from its vast library, and Shawn Fanning is on the Roxio board to help direct the company's market efforts. 

And then came the iPOD.  This is Apple Computer's proprietary MP3 player that has spawned something greater than a cottage industry.  The market seems to grow each month with new MP3 players being introduced by new companies and long-established ones. In the home audio market, the norm now is that new CD players, either single disc or multi-disc, have MP3 playback compatibility. Even high end home CD players consider MP3 de riguer among the playback formats. Indeed, the MP3 digital medium looks as if it will continue to grow for many years go come.