The digital music revolution is definitely here, all you need to do is look around and it seems that everyone is using an iPod or other PMP device. Digital tracks have quickly outpaced traditional CD sales and online digital music sales have skyrocketed.

Back in February we reported that Apple’s iTunes store was the second largest music retailer in the United States. Apple announced this week that it was now the top music retailer in America, surpassing Wal-Mart.

Amazon today announced plans for an international rollout of the Amazon MP3 music download service to take place sometime yet this year. This announcement is probably the biggest threat to Apple’s mammoth iTunes to date as it likely to cause the reining media download leader to make some changes in coming months to keep up with the competition.

Once Sony BMG came onboard Amazon became the only online retailer to offer downloadable MP3’s from all of the four most major music labels that are all also DRM-free. Amazon MP3 now boasts over 3.3 million songs available with no restrictions on what player or computer the songs can run on, and no restrictions of how many places users can copy it to.

iTunes now has the available ringtones for the Apple iPhone turned on where users can choose from over 500,000 tracks that bear a special “ringtone” symbol next to them and make their own custom ringtone. The interface allows users to choose the section of the song they want and add some “mix”, such as looping, fading and selecting the section of the song.

All this comes for just $1.98 for each $0.99 song because remember, owning the track alone isn’t quite enough, you must pay for it again to use it as a ringtone. Happy Tuesday.

A recent report by the NPD Group shows that Apple iTunes has moved into the 3rd position for music retailers in the U.S., beating Amazon.com out of the #3 spot.

The report surveyed 40,000 people to find that in the first quarter Apple carried a 10% market share trailing Wal-Mart with a 15.8% and Best Buy with 13.8%. Both Wal-Mart and Best Buy sell a majority of their music as physical CD’s, but the study also noted a decline in CD sales while digital music sales overall continues to rise.

Even …

Best Buy announced today the release of its Best Buy Digital Music Store. This new service will give music lovers yet another option in the increasingly competitive digital music domain.

The new digital music service is powered by the RealNetworks Rhapsody 4.0 music service, and features both a permanent download store and a subscription download service.

This announcement is great for consumers who will now have even more options for purchasing digital music. Best Buy has a long road ahead of them …