Pssst, hey buddy-- wake up! It's time to check in on the latest developments in the field of the iTunes Music Store's competition. We know, we know: it's usually about as exciting as watching C-SPAN, or maybe watching someone watching C-SPAN-- with C-SPAN 2 in Picture-in-Picture. But that's only because so far the only "competition" that looks to be any sort of threat is Microsoft's offering, which is so lame in its current incarnation that its threat is due entirely to Microsoft's built-in captive audience. (By the way, were we the only ones who mistook the picture of Phil Collins on the MSN Music site to be a snapshot of a grumpy Steve Ballmer? Eeeek!)

Anyway, here's the latest challenger to step into the ring: Virgin. Faithful viewer jens pointed us to the Virgin Digital Megastore, which is now running in an "open beta" state, and it looks like it may be the closest thing that the iTMS has to competition based on actual merit. While most of those other stores run in a web browser, CNET reports that Virgin is taking a more iTunesy route by "jumping into the market with a full-featured music jukebox written from scratch." The download store runs inside the jukebox itself, which implies that Virgin offers something approaching the seamlessness of the iTunes/iTMS experience.

(We know, Microsoft's store will apparently run in Windows Media Player, but somehow that doesn't sound as integrated. It'd be like if the iTMS ran in QuickTime Player or something.)

As far as other similarities go, there's a million-song catalog and a 99 cents-per-song price, but that's pretty much it. In fact, in most ways the Virgin service smells an awful lot like all of its other non-iTMS brethren, so you may want to crack a window. First of all, it's Windows-only. (Surprise, surprise.) Downloaded music is in Windows Media format and DRMed to the hilt; so far, you can only play a purchased song on the computer you actually used to buy it in the first place, which just screams "2003." Virgin Digital also boasts the semiubiquitous subscription service, albeit at a cheaper price; $7.99 a month gives subscribers to the store's "club" unlimited listening access to the entire catalog, although if you want to burn a song to CD or stick it on a portable player, you have to buy it anyway.

So if this service is like all the other Windows-only offerings except with its own dedicated jukebox software, what will set Virgin's offering apart from the competition? Easy, says Virgin Digital's prez Zack "This IS My Real Name" Zalon: "(Our rivals) are technology companies developing music services. We are a music company developing technology." Which is an interesting way to pitch it, because really, do you want a music company developing this technology? An online music store requires that its developers build tech; as far as we can fathom, it doesn't require them to write and record a catchy pop chart-topper. In other words, which would you rather have, a music download service built by engineers with a thorough grasp of Internet protocols, secure transactions, and database optimization and retrieval, or one slapped together by Keith Richards and the Spice Girls?

Whatever. Virgin Digital's also singing a tune so familiar that Napster can probably sue for copyright infringement: it plans to emerge from the battle successful by leveraging "the powerful Virgin Megastore brand." And okay, it's a pretty powerful brand, well-known among music-buyers, etc. But when it comes to digital music, is it stronger than Napster's? Because look how far Napster's brand got it: just about as far as the curb in time for trash day. And honestly, at this point we really think that Apple is a stronger and better-known brand among tech-savvy music-lovers because of a little thing called the iPod (and a littler thing called the mini). So the more we think about it, the more we have trouble believing that Virgin's going to do the iTMS much damage.

In other words, you can go back to sleep now. Sorry to wake you.