2003: Ringtone Medley

For Textually 2003 - The Year in Review , here is a roundup of this year's ringtone highlights, some random stats, innovative ideas and new technologies that emerged, what's coming next and original tones that made headline news.

Random stats:

According to the Mobile Data Association, $120.7 million worth of ringtones will be sold globally in 2003, up from $69 million last year. Ringtones now account for $50 million in annual revenue according to the Yankee Group or 2 billion in revenue, according to Consulting firm Strategy Analytics. And reggae star Sean Paul's hit single "Get Busy" sold more ring tones than CD singles, some $400,000 worth. To be honest, I find it very difficult to get a handle on figures in this industry, as numbers seem to vary from survey to survey, so the above is really to be taken with a grain of salt - though they all come from reliable sources.

So numbers aside, here is textually's selection of this year's ringtone highlights:

-- Urban World Wireless and the Mobile Entertainment Forum, announced the «First «Ringtone of the Year Award», honoring Rap Artist 50 Cent of Interscope Records.

-- In what I believe to be a world first, an artist tied up with a handset manufacturer for the launch of a new album. The special edition Nokia 3300 (in black of course) came with the entire "Black Album" preloaded on a multimedia card.

-- Nominee ringtones of the MTV awards, were available on the MTVringtones.com website. From Best Song and Best Video to Best Male and Best Newcomer, there was a ringtone to match every nomination in every category.

-- Related to the above, viewers across Europe last Fall were able for the first time to download their favourite contestant's song as a ringtone during the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen.

-- Illusionist David Blaine - who endured starvation suspended from a crane by the River Thames in a glass box for 44 days - was flash mobbed as he entered his final week of confinment. People rang their mobile phone together at exactly 7.44 pm and then chanted "what goes up, must come down" at Blaine."

-- An innovative fund raising campaign was launched in the Philippines to help the cause of battered women and to raise money - by dowloading a ringtone.

-- Ringtones were offered as a gift-with-purchase in Brunei's most popular gourmet coffee café, CoffeeZone.

-- An experimental live concert was held at the annual Ars Electronica festival, in Linz, Austria where performer Tim Didymus conducted a live concert featuring music and sounds generated entirely on-the-fly from a mobile phone application.

-- The Hamburg Kunsthalle was the venue for a musical event dubbed "Wählt die Signale" (Dial the Signals), a radio concert for 144 mobile phones.

-- Mini ringtones for downloading are starting to appear on websites, not for voice calls but for incoming text messages.

-- A popular song, "Crazy in Love" by Beyoncé was not released only on compact disc and to radio stations. It was also sent to cellphone users who wanted to download it as their ringtone.

-- The new Ricky Martin album made it's debut in South Korea, on cellphones, six days before the release worldwide. South Koreans were able to download cuts from the CD to their mobile phones.

-- Warner Bros, launched an opt-in Marketing campaign by SMS, in advance of the release of Madonna's new album. Subscribers received an SMS and a downloadable sound clip.

-- An generally, throughout the entire year, record labels entered deals with wireless carriers and other companies to promote their artists, selling the rights to their recordings, in the hope of driving CD sales and, down the road, direct sales of songs over mobile phones.

Here are some of the innovative ideas and new technologies that emerged this year, enabling users to download real music or listen to their cell phones in new ways:

-- Nokia came out with the 3300, it's first handset able to play "True Tones" - real music played as ringtones - containing an MP3 player, FM stereo and a digital recorder.

-- Shazam , best known for it's music recognition "tagging" technology launched two new services: «SongMail», allowing users to send a 30-second song clip to a friend's mobile, and «Tag a Trac», a service enabling users to purchase the ringtones of the track they 'tagged'.

-- Karaoke applications offered by Japanese ringtone providers, allowed mobile users to sing-along.

-- Motorola took tune technology one step further this year with the launch of «MotoMixer», a feature that lets phone users mix their own ringtones.

-- «True Tones», a new format for ringtones, enables users to use real audio clips as a ring signal, moving away from the original beeps and Midi files of older phones.

-- Xingtone.com developed software which converts MP3 files to ringtones and allows users to make their cell phone ring with any piece of real music or any voice or recorded sound.

-- Cellphone entertainment website Zingy, offered an application allowing mobile users to sing their own favorite tune then convert it into a ringtone.

-- Psiloc Real Vision is a new application which allows mobile users to assign videos to contacts that are then played when that contact rings them. Effectively giving video ringtones.

And coming up soon:

-- Mobile song-swapping technology from major music labels.

-- Ring back tones - a service which replaces the common, non-distinctive "ring ring" sound callers hear when calling someone, with music selections, celebrity voices or amusing sounds.

Some original tones that made headlines this year:

-- Award winning Retro Ringtones offered a catalogue of voice tones including great lies of history, operatic arias and robotic voices.

-- Modtones announced the launch of the silent ringtone - which made alot of noise in the press.

-- The British Library 's offered a catalogue of animal noises made in the wild.

-- The Royal Opera announced ringtones themed around particular operas and ballets.

-- "Bombs Over Baghdad" was the latest song to be embraced as a pro-war anthem.

-- Modtone's flatulence ringtone was a huge hit, downloaded by thousands as soon as it was released in May.

-- Voices of sumo wrestling stars were offered as mobile voice tones.

-- Different Sounds offered an interesting selection of sound tones; bubble, electric typewriter, fax tone, immediate car break and a personal favorite, ice cream cart coming.