Formula 1 engine ringtone

Siemens, who has partnered with the Formula 1 racing series since 1998, will premiere official Grand Prix cell phones in Barcelona. Available as a limited edition, the two new models (S55 S and C55 C) will be configured with distinctive Formula 1 motifs, the F1 logo as a screensaver, and engine-sound ringtones.

They will be offered in Siemens Phone Centres in the VIP area situated alongside European racetracks and also on the internet at Siemens Online Shop, according to Business Wire.

The revenue from sales in the Siemens Phone Centre at European Grand Prix races will be donated to Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund. Nice.

Retro Ringtones

Retro Ringtones is a producer of licensed music and sound libraries for mobile operators, but not just any producer.

Believing that a customised ringtone is more than just a way to tell your phone apart from the crowd, Retro Ringtones offers a range of pop culture fashion ringtone statements. The company's tag line, "Wicked Style on your Mobile", offers a catalogue of animal mating calls, something called ethnic world, air guitar riffs, birdcalls, infernal machine sounds and, I'm not making this up, "human debris" -- which should only be heard in the privacy of a bathroom. Other sound tracks include "great lies of history", operatic arias and robotic voices. Fun.

Promoting artists labels by SMS

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. Universal Records used text messaging to increase airplay for Nelly's video "Air Force Ones" on BET's viewer participation show, "106 & Park." "This technology is a great way to bridge the gap between the artist's label and the fans," said Dorothy Hui, marketing manager in new media for Universal/Motown Records. According to an article in Kansas City.com

NFL ringtones and logos

Die-hard football fans who own a Motorola cell phone (C331 or C332), can celebrate their love of the game by downloading NFL ringtones, including a Monday Night Football theme song ("Superstar" by Johnny Pearson), as well as team logos and animated screensavers.

Mobile Streams launches voice ringtones

Mobile Streams -- who owns and operates a network of more than 250 different industry and consumer websites including Ringtones.com and MultiMediaMessaging.com -- has announced the launch of a range of voice ringtones.

The ringtones feature polyphonic sound but also have a voice track overlaid on them such that the ringtone can actually sing the track lyrics. Technically, the voice overlay is based on a modified WAV sample that Mobile Streams has developed.

They are available on Ringtones.com and Polyphonicringtones.com, according to Mobile eCommerce World.

The ringtone market remains a surprise to many

In an interesting article entitled «Remixing Ringtones» dated April 23 in TheFeature.com, Steve Wallage writes about the ringtone market and how difficult it is to measure as it is so fragmented by a multitude of small suppliers. And though it is still very much dominated by the music charts, new applications are emerging.

In the US, Moviso TruTones offers ringtones with the voices of more than 70 celebrities of current and legendary stars of movie, television, sports, music and comedy. And Moviso's FXTones, offers more than 60,000 different sound effects for downloading on cell phones.

Innovative ideas have emerged, such as karaoke applications offered by Japanese ringtone providers, allowing subscribers to 'practice' songs. This service has been widened to include images, and users can send up to four photos which can be 'watched' while the audio clip is playing.

The ringtone market will also be helped by new distribution opportunities such as mobile prepaid cards for ringtones to be sold in the US by Moviso, through more than 6,000 stores including 7-Eleven, Wherehouse Music, and other regional retailers and leading wireless operators. [photo from mobile-secrets.com]

The Global Wireless Summit

We can expect some announcements/news soon regarding the business of ringtones, following The Global Wireless Summit in New York, held yesterday, May 22nd, at the Japan Society, as Sony Music, EMI, Yahoo!, and Warner Music Group where amongst the companies debating the hottest topics in the wireless industries today.

700'000 ringtones downloaded on Virgin Mobile USA since July 2002

Launched last July, Virgin Mobile USA has downloaded more than 700,000 ringtones and its customers have sent nearly 50 million text messages, an average of 25 text messages per month per customer, according to rcrnews

James Winsoar, first ringtone provider

Does anyone know who's behind the ringtone craze of today? Well it was 23 year old British national James Winsoar, who first realised in July 1999, that a feature built by Nokia into their cell phones -- allowing mobile phone companies to add their logo and ringing sounds -- could be exploited by others, allowing anyone the freedom to customise their mobile phone with graphics and music.

He set up My Nokia service in July 1999, the world's first commercial ringtone service (ultimately changing it's name to Phat Tonez), a company estimated at £ 2 million in May 2000.

The concept of downloading ringtones spread like wildfire online with many copycat-sites setting up shop all over the Web, sparking off a controversy with the music industry and record companies who complained they were losing out on millions of dollars of royalties for their music.

Mobile services to generate $ 25 billion in 2005

Mobile services in Europe will generate a total of Euro 23 billion ($ 25 billion) by 2005, according to a new report from market analysts Strand Consult, "How to make money on mobile services", per Europemedia.

Radio Ringtone Concert

According to a posting by Norbet Specker on EMedia Tidbits, the Hamburg Kunsthalle will be the venue for a musical event dubbed "Wählt die Signale" (Dial the Signals), which will be a radio concert for 144 mobile phones. Numbers and tones will be published on the radio site FSK and everybody is invited to contribute. Calls will be free (since nobody will answer them) and the station will air the concert itself.

For other examples of ringtone concerts, check out the Ringtones Concerts category on ringtonia.

Paid Content More Successful on Mobile than on the PC

A new report released from Jupiter MMXI shows that by 2006 European consumers will spend $3.6 billion for content on their mobile phones, such as ring tones, logos, sports scores and stock prices, compared to $1.8 billion on their PCs, according to Daily Research News.

Downloading ringtones from a Sony kiosks in Bangkok

EOToday.com has announced a partnership with Sony Thai Co to operate a music downloading service called Music 4U by eotoday corner, according to an article in The Bangkok Post.

In the initial stage, Sony will provide kiosks and the hardware needed to download the tunes for booth installation through its 16 Sony shops in Bangkok. The kiosks would be where new downloading services, including ringtone, CDs, and VCDs, would be provided for in the future.

"Bombs Over Baghdad" ringtone

Though not what the author intended, Outkast's "Bombs Over Baghdad" is the latest song to be embraced as a pro-war anthem. The ringtone of the song is available on Globe Interactive.

Ethnic Ringtones, a niche market

Looking for Hindi ringtones? Monavi Communications, provides dozens of popular Hindi ringtones for Nokia phones, indexed by region: Assamese, Bangla, Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi and Tamil.

Social Mobile Phones

In a fascinating article in TheFeature.com by Marc Frauenfelder -- February 24, titled «Beyond the Politeness-Button», Marc describes «The Social Mobile phones», a project developped by industrial design firm, Ideo.

The 5 SoMo handsets were designed to encourage conversation about the role of mobiles in public spaces and to curb abusive mobile behaviour, such as designing phones able to deliver an electric shock to your hand when the person you're talking to is too loud, or activating a little slingshot mechanism on a catapult phone -- which transmits a loud burst of incomprehensible babble to the offending person's handset, or having to play the phone like a flute in order to make a call.

Social Mobile Phones

In a fascinating article in TheFeature.com by Marc Frauenfelder -- February 24, titled «Beyond the Politeness-Button», Marc describes «The Social Mobile phones», a project developped by industrial design firm, Ideo.

The 5 SoMo handsets were designed to encourage conversation about the role of mobiles in public spaces and to curb abusive mobile behaviour, such as designing phones able to deliver an electric shock to your hand when the person you're talking to is too loud, or activating a little slingshot mechanism on a catapult phone -- which transmits a loud burst of incomprehensible babble to the offending person's handset, or having to play the phone like a flute in order to make a call.

Hockey theme ringtone a selling point for a new phone

This article from Digital Home Canada describes the launch of a new Samsung mobile phone (the SPH-a500) on the Canadian market by Bell Mobility. The article details all of the features of the phone as well as an interesting way of making this phone attractive to this specific market, by offering a pre-programmed a hockey theme ringtone, which has proven popular among Canada's sports fans.

Sound Ringtones

Y!Singapore Mobile has a "sound" category in it's ringtone catalogue, where subscribers can choose to download the sound of a giggling baby, laughter, the click of a camera, a frog or a fox jumping (sounding like special effects in a cartoon), or a gun shot (!). That should get attention.

Arabic and Chinese Ringtones

Phoneserve, the pre-paid calling card division of Callserve Communications, has launched a full range of Nokia mobile phone ringtones for its Arab customers.

And a newly launched all Chinese website, smschinese.com, is offering its subscribers a selection of Chinese ringtones.

Temporary Ringtones

In trying to get a handle on copyright protection and to avoid what happened to the music industry on the Internet with Napster and other file sharing websites, last June, Nokia released a software toolkit enabling programmers to create ring tones and images that will last only for a limited time. To play them indefinitely, the user will have to pay a set fee which will give him access to the correct digital key, unlocking the full version. Per an article in New Scientist

Rescue Rings

Virgin Mobile expands on it's "saved by the bell" feature, by partnering with MTV for it's "Rescue Ring'', whereby mobile customers can chose from several MTV personalities to voice the rescue, schedule a time when they want to receive a call and thereby "escape any situation such as bad dates, boring meetings, or any other situation that needs interrupting"

Also of note, Virgin Mobile's "balance button'', which shows how much talk time the user has left, as reported in SiliconValley.com