As a result of a new agreement between online music retailers and the recording industry, all three major sellers of music downloads have adjusted their pricing. Whereas before the majority of songs were sold for $.89 or $.99 per track, now iTunes, Amazon, and Wal-Mart are all offering downloads in a range of prices dictated by popularity and other factors. Here’s how the prices run down:

• iTunes Music Store downloads now cost $.69, $.99, or $1.29 per track. Apple has mitigated the pain a bit here by making every track available as a higher-quality sound file than before and stripping away the five-device limit that was once standard in the iTunes Store. But on the flip side, anecdotal evidence seems to indicate far more tracks priced at $1.29 than $.69.
• Amazon MP3 downloads now cost $.79, $.99 or $1.29 per song. Amazon’s approach seems to be to apply the lower prices a bit more freely than at iTunes, and Amazon’s songs have never had play restrictions attached.
• And Wal-Mart comes in on the low end here with downloads offered at $.64, $.94, and $1.24. The retail giant also offers specific pages highlighting songs available at the different price points.

Are you able to find what you listen to at the lower price points? Or has this change made buying music more expensive for you?

[Read]

A quick followup: As proof that the previously reported bandwith-cap program is most definitely in the testing phase, Time Warner Cable (of RoadRunner High Speed Internet fame) have already announced tweaks to the program.

In a statement issued directly to followers of TWC on micro-blogging/IM platform Twitter, chief operating officer Landel Hobbs detailed some of the changes:

• To accommodate lighter Internet users and those who need a lower priced option, we are introducing a 1 GB per month tier offering speeds of 768 KB/128 KB for $15 per month. Overage charges will be $2 per GB per month. Our usage data show that about 30% of our customers use less than 1 GB per month.

• We are increasing the bandwidth tier sizes included in all existing packages in the trial markets to 10, 20, 40 and 60 GB for Road Runner Lite, Basic, Standard and Turbo packages, respectively. Package prices will remain the same. Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.

• We will introduce a 100 GB Road Runner Turbo package for $75 per month (offering speeds of 10 MB/1 MB). Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.

• Overage charges will be capped at $75 per month. That means that for $150 per month customers could have virtually unlimited usage at Turbo speeds.

• Once we implement this trial, we will not immediately start billing customers for overage. Rather, we will first provide two months of usage data. Then we will provide a one-month grace period in which overages will be noted on customers’ bills, but they will not be charged. So, customers will have an opportunity to assess their usage and right-size their service packages before usage charges are applied.

These are all steps in the right direction. It’ll be interesting to see if these amounts are tweaked further, and by how much.

[Read - via CrunchGear]

For internet-savvy shoppers looking for deals online, coupon aggregator RetailMeNot has been a go-to destination for quite some time. The site provides listings of online discounts and coupons for online stores in an easily searchable form, with ratings from users indicating how effective the coupons are.

Now the site has gotten that much more useful with the launch of a printable-coupon service for local businesses. You just punch in your ZIP code and, optionally, what you’re looking for coupons for, and the results are displayed in a handy map format.

The pickings around my area are fairly slim at the moment, but given that the service has just recently launched, it’s likely to improve anywhere. If you’re in a major metropolitan area, you may see better results more quickly.

The venerable Valpak and Money Mailer both offer similar services, but RetailMeNot’s thriving community leads me to believe it could eclipse both those coupon clearinghouses given enough time.

[Read - via Lifehacker]