deal

When we first read the description for Rental Calendar, we weren't quite sure what it was for. Renting out housing? Cars? Machinery? It turns out that the answer is "all of the above," and then some. Rental Calendar is a basic program that manages the rental of just about anything that can be rented. Of course, the drawback to the program's broadness is that it doesn't provide specialized features; it's designed to be general and nonspecific.

Rental Calendar's interface is attractive and intuitive, with the same visual style as recent versions of Microsoft … Read more

With the summer in full force, we wanted to bring you some hot sizzling summer deals to cool you down. As a Partner Manager on CNET Downloads, I've been working with our developer community to design some special promotions that our readers might find useful. Previously, we've had special offers for Norton 360, AVG Internet Security, IObit Advanced SystemCare PRO, to name a few, and we are looking to bring you many more great deals going forward.

In an effort to accommodate everyone's different software needs, we've come up with a new way to deliver these … Read more

Users of location-based social network Loopt who are looking for discounts or other deals in their neighborhood now have an easier way to find them.

The service is expected to launch a new feature on Friday for its Looptstar application, which differs from Loopt's core app in that it's focused on finding nearby deals. The update takes the idea of showing you what deals are in your immediate vicinity and puts them into one large directory that users can browse without actually having to be at those places.

"Users had been asking us to see all the … Read more

Every so often a marketing fad comes along in digital media that makes companies willing to adopt it so quickly that they wind up bending and twisting their business models like Silly Putty. There were Facebook apps. There were Foursquare-style "game mechanics." These days, short-term retail deals have taken over.

Of course, none of this is new. Following the runaway success of Groupon, which offers a steep daily discount-a-day in dozens of cities around the world, with the condition that a minimum number of buyers must sign on; and Gilt, which has built an empire of low-priced designer … Read more

Twitter's hoping to conjure up a new revenue stream with @earlybird, its take on the limited-time-only online deals craze. And the company announced Wednesday its first @earlybird deal: a limited two-for-one ticket deal for the new Disney live-action flick "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," which just hit theaters. It's Twitter's second edgy ad partnership with Disney, after a "promoted trend" in sync with the Pixar film "Toy Story 3."

Unfortunately, Twitter might not want to be launching @earlybird with this turkey, an over-the-top Jerry Bruckheimer action-fest that stars Nicolas Cage. To put … Read more

If you're interested in adding Microsoft's Kinect to your Xbox 360, which comes out November 4, you might want to check out Walmart.com's $199 preorder option that it's serving up until July 23.

The bundle includes the Kinect ($150 value) along with your choice of one of six Kinect launch titles and a $30 Walmart.com e-gift card that you can apply to a second Kinect game (or not). The list price of most Kinect games is $60, so if you do the math, the whole thing works out to a $10 savings plus that … Read more

Twitter is getting into the online shopping business--or at least pointing to places where deals can be had.

The company's new service, aptly named @earlybird, is an official Twitter account that the company plans to feed with deals at both online and offline retailers, as well as "sneak peeks and events." Users who follow the account will see these entries just like any other tweet in their stream.

While it might seem to be a minor offering, @earlybird is notable in that Twitter plans to monetize it. The company is partnering with companies to provide the deals, … Read more

Buying or selling used hi-fi--before the Internet--was a huge hassle. Expensive classified ads in newspapers and magazines were the only option for individual sellers and buyers; that, or trade your gear in to a hi-fi dealer.

Nowadays you can buy or sell hi-fi and pretty much everything else on eBay, but I've never used it. I've always sold my old gear on AudiogoN, which specializes in high-end audio components, such as preamplifiers, power amps, speakers, CD players, turntables, cables, etc.

If you're looking for great sounding bargains, you'll find plenty on AudiogoN. I saw a vacuum-tube Dynaco FM-3 radio offered for $139; a mint-condition Marantz 2220 stereo receiver for $245; an NAD 7100 receiver for $175; and a Dual 1019 turntable for $250. AudiogoN averages around 11,000 listings at any given time.

High-end gear that originally sold for big bucks is rarely cheap, because good, quality gear, even when it's decades old, retains its value. But even so, AudiogoN is a way to get the good stuff that would otherwise be out of range. I saw a Conrad-Johnson 16 LS vacuum-tube preamplifier that sold new for $8,000 listed for $3,500.

AudiogoN was founded in 1998 and now claims 295,000 registered members. Rates for sellers are just $6 for a classified ad (which runs 30 days); or $6 for an auction, that runs between 3 and 14 days. There's also a one percent surcharge on the sale price. Buyers pay nothing for the service. Best of all, almost everyone reading the listings is an audiophile, which certainly isn't the case for eBay. Here's a link to a mock ad, so you can get an idea of what they look like.

Manufacturers and retailers also advertise and sell gear on AudiogoN, and there's a wide range of active forums for audiophiles of every type. … Read more

The U.S. Department of Justice has begun asking questions about Apple's role in the recent scaling back of special music discounts and promotions at Amazon, according to two high level music industry sources.

The sources said investigators have begun speaking to a number of digital music retailers and top record labels about Apple's response to the "MP3 Daily Deal," an Amazon promotion that involved slashing prices on specific titles and pushing them heavily the day they were released. Amazon sometimes negotiated with the labels to get exclusive access to the music for a day, and … Read more