iTunes remains the "best" digital music store, showing strong gains year-over-year in awareness, usage, familiarity and "best brand" mentions in an Ipsos survey. Nearly every other music store dropped in the "best brand" rankings, with Napster, MySpace, Wal-Mart and Yahoo Music leading the way downward.

Only Rhapsody showed gains year-over-year thanks to extensive advertising and partnerships. Helping Rhapsody is the fact that it doesn't compete head-on with iTunes. Rhapsody is a monthly subscription service offering access to millions of songs for a recurring subscription fee. Much to my chagrin, Apple has thus far not introduced a subscription music service, despite rumors of such a program dating back quite a while.

Amazon's mp3 store, with a very strong brand behind it and DRM-free access to a ton of songs, made a strong first showing, grabbing 9% of the "best brand" rankings. The full chart is below.