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eMusic, which bills itself as the world's largest retailer of independent music and the second largest digital music service after iTunes, has announced a transformation of its Web site.

eMusic uses a subscription-based model, but sells music unencumbered with any sort of Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions. The service enables subscribers who pay a monthly fee to download a fixed number of music files. All the music available from eMusic is encoded in MP3 format, so it can be used on Macs, Windows PC and Linux systems, with iPods, iPhones and other MP3 music players.

eMusic's emphasis is on independently recorded and distributed music, and the Web site's new features leverage "Web 2.0" technologies. The first changes to be seen have been integrated into a redesigned eMusic album page -- users see not just album information and track listing on the page, but also imported content from YouTube, Flickr and Wikipedia.

In an interview with Macworld, eMusic CEO and President David Pakman explained that his company will be rolling out continuous improvements to the site over the next six months, with changes expected over the next couple of weeks.

eMusic's site changes will help users better add their own reviews and access existing reviews -- those posted by eMusic editors, other customers and content in the All Music guide. Users will soon be able to embed album content on their own Web sites, as well.