Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, music lovers of all ages - ZDNet, in association with Don Kidding Presents, welcomes you to the contest you have been waiting for. More than a month has passed since these two contenders entered our proverbial arena, and both programs have been recently updated to new versions in their respective development departments. Returning challenger RealJukebox Plus, losing by technical knockout in the last three-way bout, returns upgraded to the beta version 2.0. MusicMatch, the returning champ and reigning all-in-one jukebox application for MP3s and digital audio, comes to this contest with just an incremental 0.10 upgrade since the last fight.

RealJukebox, with a claimed reach of 34 million people, has been losing ground to the current champ in recent months, which maintains a modest but solid 6 million users. Both contenders are poised to dominate the all-in-one digital jukebox market, and a lot is at stake with this brawl.

And now, let's get ready to ru-u-u-u-u-u-u-umble!

In the challenger corner, weighing in at 9.1MB, hailing from RealNetworks in Seattle, WA., and wearing the blue skin with black and white trim, please welcome our returning contender, the all-in-one, Real "Jiggy With It" Jukebox Plus 2.0...

And in the opposite corner, weighing in at 7.2MB, hailing from San Diego, CA, and wearing the mahogany skin with gray and white trim is the returning champion of digital music jukeboxes and heavyweight champion of the world, "Meet your" MusicMatch 5.10...

As you may remember, in our last three-way bout, MusicMatch and RealJukebox Plus smeared J box in design and usability. While the competition was close in their last scuffle, MusicMatch was the declared winner for the intermediate and advanced users due to its stellar AutoDJ features, easy CD-burning, and ability to link the player's music library to the MusicMatch web site for artist information. Notable features of RealJukebox Plus v1.0 included the simplicity of the interface, automatic simultaneous listening and ripping of CDs, and the Windows Explorer feel. RealJukebox Plus fell flat when it came to burning CDs, though, and it's heavy toll on system resources led to the conferring of the belt to MusicMatch.

Round One: Lookin' Pretty