well, the credit of making portable audio player hugely popular goes to ipod, surely. they were great back then when they were intro'd as they were something different. but not anymore. u haf similar and better products out there..... according to me ipod is pure hype. zune is much better... and iriver has better players.. so many in the market. they give the same or better audio quality (personal experience), provide better earbuds and most importantly are cheaper! .... and again from my exp. i can say that the shuffle is the crappiest thing in the world that shares its name wid the most popular music player (ipod)....
but all my praises for the nano.. its a great product!