Fast Phones Are Key to Mobile Music Growth

The industry's players are hoping next-generation handsets will spur ringtone purchases much like Apple's iTunes created the digital download market, reports Reuters.

"It's the same thing digital music faced," says Liz Brooks, senior VP of business development for buy.com. "We need to make the experience of purchasing ringtones a logical choice by making it easy and fun, but also within the value structure."

The new phones are intended to simplify menu navigation, speed up transactions and downloads, increase storage and improve audio and graphic quality.

Jeff Hallock, VP of consumer marketing with Sprint, says purchasing ringtones through handsets will continue to differ from buying them on the Internet. He says the experience is like using a vending machine".

Make ringtones From Your Favorite CDs

Now you can create a ringtone from your favorite CD and send it to your cell phone for use as a personalized ringer, according to phonecontent.com.

SnipnSend (Patent Pending), "allows anyone, 8 to 80, freedom of choice in creating 30-second ringtones from personal CD collections".

How does it work?

Step 1: Enter your cell phone number
Step 2: Choose a song track from your CD
Step 3: Enter a snip starting point - click Create My Ring Tone

Mobile media start-up PrimeTones is the first web site to offer Snip 'n Send.

VP for Artist Relations, David Blumberg says, "It's a no-brainer ... this is the ticket that gives record companies an unprecedented opportunity to promote artists while allowing users freedom of choice previously unavailable. The beleaguered recording industry sees ringtones/tunes as a cash cow in the 3.5 billion dollar ringtone market".

Phone tones ring £70m change to charts music

Official recognition of the extraordinary rise of a cultural phenomenon that may come to the rescue of the stricken music industry will emerge next week with the publication of the (first) "Ring Tone Chart", reports The Independent.

[...] Britain is now set to beat the United States to having an official ring-tone chart. The first ring-tone top 20 will be published in the magazine Music Week next Monday.

"The chart, which is backed by the British Phonographic Industry and is being compiled by the accountants KPMG, will highlight an industry that has grown to about £70m within the UK."

I'm always wary of any article that claims to be the "the first" at anything. It's usually not entirely accurate. To the best of my knowledge, Moviso is a US company, and they publish a monthly ringtone chart - in the WSJ.

Chaku-uta ring songs - New Hope for Music Industry ?

Trends in Japan via Xeni Jardin for Unwired.cc has an interesting article on the tremendous success in Japan of the Chaku-uta ringtone service.

"Chaku-uta is a ring-tone download service that was started on KDDI Corp.'s au brand cell phones in December 2002. It had marked somewhat over 44 million downloads as of the end of November 2003, less than a year since its launch. The service has dramatically grown into an almost $90 million (¥10 billion) market in its first year.

The monthly download count currently stands at seven million. In addition to their originally intended use as ring tones, these "ring songs" are generating new demand as substitutes for rental CDs and as a way for consumers to sample a song before deciding whether or not to purchase the CD".

To fully understand this service, check out Justin Hall's Chaku-uta article of last December, published in TheFeature.com.

World's Largest Single Wireless Operator/Music Content Distribution

Vodafone and Sony Music Entertainment today announced the world's largest single mobile operator/music company content distribution agreement, according to 3G.

"Under the terms of the agreement, Sony Music Entertainment will initially provide Vodafone with a wide range of content encompassing global and local artists, which will include real music ringtones, polyphonic ringtones, artist images, video streaming and short video downloads."

Next Generation Ringtones Cost More Than Whole Songs

TheFeature.com sheds light on yesterday's post Ringtones Left Out of Digital Music Price Wars

"A new study shows the price of ringtones is outpacing the price of digital music. How long will users pay more for less?"

Ringtones Made Easy

A common complaint about downloading a ringtone - or trying to - is either that the process is confusing or misleading, making you go through the first steps of a process to find out that either a particular provider "doesn't work with your carrier", the service is "only available to Nokia phones", or when a ringtone actually does arrive on your cell phone screen - after you've paid for it - you can't open the message because your cell phone provider hasn't "unlocked your browser" before putting the phone on the market. cf earlier post this week on the WSJ comparing different providers.

Life should now be made easier, thanks to Unwired Appeal who has launched a new mobile content portal/website - toneguys.com - which supplies ringtones, graphics, and java games to North American cell phone users, and automatically detects a cell phone's capabilities and optimizes mobile content before transferring it to the phone..

Ringtones Left Out of Digital Music Price Wars

A recent price war has made Internet song downloads cheaper while the price tag on a mobile phone ringtone has barely budged, and in some cases, is creeping up, a new report on Tuesday said, according to Reuters.

"The price discrepancy between downloads and ringtones -- those ubiquitous tuneful greetings programmed into millions of handsets -- can be laid squarely at the feet of record companies, according to consultancy firm Informa Plc.

The main culprit is the advent of so-called "sample" ringtones, the latest stereophonic tones pulled from actual studio recordings.

They carry a price tag of as much as four times higher than the typical Internet download price in Western Europe -- a price gap that could prematurely stifle a promising ringtone business, Informa said.

But the problem for the piracy-battered music labels is that licensing restrictions have kept music labels out of the sector's early growth. With "sample" ringtones, the labels hope to cash in on the business.

The sample" ringtones, because they are often taken from studio renditions, can now be licensed by the labels too.

As a result, prices for "sample" ringtones across Western Europe are on the rise, ranging from the equivalent of $1.38 from Web-based reseller F1-Live in Belgium to $7.35 from T-Mobile in Britain, Informa said.

In contrast, song downloads tend to follow Apple Computer Inc. iTunes straightforward pricing model of 99 cents per track. In Europe, downloads are priced in the range of 0.99 euros ($1.20) or 99 pence ($1.79).

Buying a Ringtone for a Cellphone

The WSJ has an interesting article on Ringtones and compares how different providers measure up:

They tested T-Mobile, Zingy.com, ringtonejukebox.com and Motomixer, a compose-your-own option offered by Motorola and ran into snags on all of them, ranging from annoying pop-up ads, to locked browsers, to "you have to own a Nokia phone" and "not available to T-Mobile subscribers".

My favorite part is the odd ringtones they picked up on:

-- Zingy.com has one of the most impressive libraries of ringtones, with more than 3,000 options, including a faint fluttering of "pigeons taking flight" and a "squealing pig" that could wake the neighbors.

-- Ringtonejukebox.com has a large and unusual collection of ringtones that includes "evil chants" and "shooting in a panicked crowd."

MCSC sues Capitel, accuses handset maker's ringtones of music copyright infringement 

The Music Copyright Society of China (MCSC) has filed a music copyright lawsuit with the Junior People's Court in Chaoyang District, Beijing, against Capitel Co. Ltd, accusing the handset maker of using copyright protected music for ringtones without permission, reports Interfax.

"In June of 2003, the MCSC discovered three models of Capitel mobile phones were using ringtones based on "Liang Zhu" or "Butterfly Lovers," two well-known pieces of Chinese music. According to MCSC, Chen Gang and He Zhanhao, the co-composers of "Butterfly Lovers," who are also members of the MCSC, never authorized Capitel to use the song. MCSC claims that Capitel violated the music copyright for the two songs, as well as infringing on the composers' intellectual property rights (IPR)".

Lord of the rings

Ringtones now account for 10% of the world's music market, generating a staggering $3bn. So shouldn't they have their own chart? Alexis Petridis for The Guardian reports.

Excerpts:

"Three years ago, personalised ringtones were given away free on websites run by amateurs, who dedicated their spare time to programming mobiles to play Eminem songs instead of merely ringing - a hobby that seemed to rank alongside translating the Bible into Klingon for pointlessness. Nobody would call ringtones pointless today.

Last year, mobile phone users spent $3bn on them. They account for 10% of the world's music market. Over the next 12 months, more and more new phones will play "mastertones" - not bleepy electronic facsimiles of chart hits, but the hits themselves. Unlike the current monophonic and polyphonic ringtones, their sales will generate money for record companies. There is talk of mastertones ultimately replacing the ailing single format.

While James Gillespie of the Official UK Chart Company, is cautious about rumours that sales of ringtones will soon be included in the singles chart -"It's something we'll possibly look at in the next few years, but it's a big 'possibly'" - others are more bullish: after all, the British singles chart is soon to include legal downloads, and their sales are barely a fraction of ringtones.

"It's only a matter of time before someone comes up with a mastertone chart," says Rob Wells, new media director of Universal Music UK, "and before that starts to carry more weight than the singles chart. I absolutely, definitely, believe one hundred percent that ringtones should be included in the charts."

The rise of the ringtone throws up some puzzling questions for the music industry. "One of the things we have to look at is why kids are perfectly happy to spend £3.99 on a ringtone, but they think a similar amount is too much to pay for a single," says Gillespie. One theory is that ringtones are simply easier to buy. There is no need to go to a shop or access a website, simply send a text message and the cost is added to your phone bill. Another is that the onslaught of reality TV has devalued the singles chart in the eyes of its traditional target market.

Top Ringtones April

The WSJ publishes Moviso's monthly ringtone pop chart.

1. Dirt Off Your Shoulder - Jay-Z

2. Overnight Celebrity - Twista

3. Burn - Usher

4. Slow Jamz - Twista feat. Kanye West & Jamie Foxx

5 Toxic - Britney Spears

6. Milkshake - Kelis

7. If I Ain't Got You - Alicia Keys

8. In Da Club - 50 Cent

9. Hey Ya! - OutKast

10. The Way You Move - OutKast

Ringtone Related Domains

Ringtonia's weekly listing of ringtone related domain names that have come up for sale and are available to the public again:

- ringtones-de.com
- ringtones-n-logos.com
- pukkaringtones.com
- 3310tones.com
- fonetonesandlogos.com
- funfonetones.com

The above names are available for registration now if anyone is interested. Source of information: Netcollateral.com.

Do-it-yourself ringtone software encroaching on potential profits, some record labels say

New software that lets anyone create unique cellular phone rings for free has some record labels worried it will kill the cash cow that is the ringtone, reports The Mercury News.

"The software, called Xingtone.com, evokes the same "oh wow, oh no'' reaction from the labels that greeted the original Napster. The fear is that people will make ringtones out of pirated songs, thus compounding the file-sharing problem while robbing the music industry of a new source of revenue.

[...] Until now, cellular phone carriers and music publishers have been the biggest beneficiaries of the ringtone trend. That's because most of the ringtones sold have been computer-generated compositions of popular songs. The record labels -- and by extension, the performers -- only get paid when someone buys the computerized version of a song.

The ringtone market is poised to explode with a new generation of mobile phones capable of playing actual recordings. Larry Kenswil, president of eLabs, Universal Music's new media and technologies division, predicts the global market for these real-sounding ringtone songs will be "massive.''

Some cellular phone networks, such as Verizon Wireless, have taken steps to block songs they don't sell. Sprint PCS has opted not to; saying that software like Xingtone stimulate demand for wireless data services.

Xingtone's president, Brad Zutaut, said there is nothing ethically or legally wrong with people taking a snippet of a song they own -- or indeed any other audio artifact, -- and transferring it their own phone.

"It's not just about music. It's about audio. These are 10-second alerts,'' said Zutaut. "Why shouldn't it make you smile when your phone goes off?'"

Related articles:

-- Xingtone Brings Its Wireless Software To CDs

-- Ringtonia Hits NYT, Sorta

-- Record label runs ring tones around wireless carriers

-- Tone This: Real (MP3) Music For Your Phone

-- Real music as a ringtone

Boot Bush ringtone?

I'm hoping someone out there will pick up on the power of political ringtones and come up with some campaign slogans for cell phones.

If anyone runs into a "Boot Bush" ringtone or message tone, please let me know. Not only will I download it on my own cell phone, but I will promote it for free on Ringtonia.

The above button comes from Tin Hat Novelties.

U.S.Celluar Top Ten Tones

U.S.Cellular's Top Ten ringtone chart:

1. Another One Bites the Dust

2. Country Grammar

3. Get Busy

4. Get Ur Freak On

5. Inspector Gadget

6. Pink Panther

7. Rollout (My Business)

8. Snake

9. Sweet Home Alabama

10. Wanksta

Karaoke on your phone

adMBlog reports on Vodafone Japan's karaoke phone with embeded sing-a-long functionality.

"You download backing tracks to the phone from the web, plug the handset into your TV, and sing into the mouthpiece. Hey presto, voice plus music issue forth from the TV speakers. Fun at parties! Just don't invite us."

Of course, the phone has all the other standard features: mega pixel camera, TFT display etc..

Other mobile Karaoke applications and services from around the world:

-- Celcom introduces 'Mobile Karaoke' - Celcom Malaysia, the country's largest mobile phone operator, has introduced a new entertainment service dubbed the Mobile Karaoke for its subscribers with GPRS-enabled handsets

-- SingTel's new Mobile Karaoke service offers the operator's post-paid mobile subscribers full-length songs for download. These come with synchronized lyrics to prompt users singing along". cf The latest in mobile content--karaoke.

-- Nokia and Taito will reportedly collaborate in providing karaoke functions to cell phones. cf Nokia, Taito Teaming Up in Mobile Phone Karaoke.

-- Irish technology company Alatto has developed a new java application called air.karaoke, that will let users download songs and lyrics, to create mobile karaoke machines. cf previous post in Ringtonia

-- Japanese ringtone providers allow 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. cf Karaoke ringtones.

Ringtone Related domain names

Ringtonia's weekly listing of ringtone related domain names that have come up for sale and are available to the public again:

- classical-ringtones.com
- everyday-ringtones.com
- 1st-ringtones.com
- nextelringtone.com
- ringtonehelpdesk.com
- personalringtones.net

The above names are available for registration now if anyone is interested. Source of information: Netcollateral.com.

Ringing up the profits

Yankee Group, the Boston-based research firm, estimates that by the end of this year, American youths ages 11 to 24 will generate $21 billion in revenue for wireless carriers -- nearly a quarter of the total cellular market, reports The Washington Post.

"NPD Group Inc., a market-information company based in Port Washington, N.Y., that has studied teen spending - on sending pictures to friends and downloading ringtones - found that cell phones are becoming an important coming-of-age marker.

"It's become the most important thing before the driver's license," said Marshal Cohen, chief analyst with NPD, which found in a recent study that teens ages 13 to 17 spent 10 percent less in the past year on clothing, largely shifting their spending to cell phones.

Jingle Casting

I've been having nagging thoughts since I reported on Friday on insurance and financial services company Nationwide being the first corporation to offer an advertising jingle as a ring tone.

Well I Googled "coca cola jingle ringtone" and came up with some interesting results, first of there are
Coca Cola jingles available for download online and some companies offer to composer "corporate ringtones" as part of their range of services. But Nationwide is probably first in promoting their commercial ringtone in such a big way

More interesting is that I found the original page from Trendwatching.com on the term Jingle Casting. Here's what they say:

"Remember the '80s? When brands like Nike and Lacoste introduced the brilliant idea (for them) of making customers pay to display their logos? Ever since, human branding has seen extremes like tattooed logos on body parts, and brand icons shaved onto heads. Now, with the current wildfire-like spread of mobile/cell phones, expect audio to be added to people's branding expressions.

Using cell phones to broadcast commercials, tunes and jingles could well be the next big thing in the multi-billion euro ring tone industry.

What's to stop corporations, organizations and political parties from enticing consumers to download their jingles, commercials or political cries for change, or using alternative broadcasting channels to spread their corporate tunes and jingles?

Nothing, as Domino's Pizza showed by introducing electrical delivery scooters sporting corporate-jingle claxons. Gimmicky? Yes. But don't underestimate the power of corporate jingles: just hearing the first few notes of 'Always Coca-Cola' may entice thirsty consumers around the world to head for the vending machine or fridge. So encountering a beeping Domino's scooter around dinner time may do wonders for your appetite AND for Domino's marketing manager entrusted with meeting the sales targets for the 'Pepperoni' or 'Vegi Feast'!"

Company offers jingle as a ringtone

Carlo Longino suggested it last September (for ringback tones) in TheFeature.com and now, insurance and financial services company Nationwide has done it. They are the first company in the U.S. (to the best of my knowledge) to offer an advertising jingle as a ring tone and trendwatchers have dubbed the phenomena "jingle casting", according to TMCnet.com.

"The company is reaching out to consumers offering its "Nationwide is On Your Side" jingle to cellular phone users through its web site. The ring tone offer is part of the company's new $58 million advertising campaign to increase brand awareness.

"We want to reach consumers in every possible way," says Steven Schreibman, vice president of advertising for Nationwide. "Whether it's through television, billboards, online or cell phones, we want people to experience the Nationwide brand."

The jingle, which has existed for almost 40 years, is downloadable through www.nationwide.com and the MIDIRingTones web site, www.midiringtones.com./

Mobile operators plan for mass take up of ringback tones

Ringback tones are set to reach mass market this year, with Vodafone, O2 and Orange all having issued requests for proposals (RFPs) for suppliers, reports New Media Zero via Techdirt.

"Industry observers believe ringback tones, which are seen by many as a possible new cash-cow for operators and record companies, will be launched by all UK operators by the end of the year".

South Korea's ringback service called COLORing launched 20 months ago and made SK Telecom $100 million (£59 million), with 35% of subscribers using it as of December 03.

T-Mobile is currently the only UK operator to have launched a service, called Caller Tunes, in December last year. (cf Mobile UK first European operator to launch a customised ring back service).

Record labels are said to be excited about the concept, viewing it as a guaranteed new revenue stream. 'Content is stored on the network so the labels love it because it's content that can't be pirated,' said Mobile Networking founder Craig Barrack interviewed by New Media Zero.

Mobile music users prove unwilling to pay

The Mobile Metrics survey (mobile-metrics.com) is an ongoing study of US wireless users, carried out by Canadian consumer market research firm Advanis. One of the survey's goals is to track consumers' attitudes to content services on mobile devices, as the market develops over here, reports New Media Zero.

"The results are just coming back from the company's first quarter of field research, and one stand-out result is that hardly anyone will pay anything to download music.

- 55% of users said they wouldn't be prepared to pay anything to download music to their device.

-- 35% would pay less than $1 for that right

-- 10% are prepared to pay between $1 and $5 to download music.

I agree with Rafat Ali's comments on this survey in Moco News, he writes: "don't come to too many conclusions after reading this story: always, always, be wary of surveys which ask consumers whether they would be willing to pay...no one, in general, is willing to pay for anything".

Cell phones and ringtones play part in new musical comedy

A stand-up comedian and a student have written a musical comedy where cell phones and ringtones play a part, which premieres in Newcastle (UK) this weekend, according to ic Teeside.

"The cast of two, Ashley and Chris are trapped in a room and must play their way out.

For extra characters, the pair have to ring people up on their mobile phones or play different roles, such as the "leading lady".

"We've created a world on stage where even the contents of the bookshelves and the ringtones on mobile phones are wry references to musicals," says Ashley, who premieres the show at Newcastle Arts Centre on Saturday".

For other examples of ringtones used in concerts or at festivals, check out this category in Ringtonia.

The Mobile Music Report For April 2004

PaidContent.org's 3rd Mobile Music Report is now available for purchase ($ 30.-), covering news and analysis from April 2004…

There is a special section this month on mobile music recognition services, including Toshiba's research, Shazam's entry in U.S., among others.

Indicative of the activity in the area, venture fundings and M&A in the sector are picking up...and we have all the news on them.

Companies Covered in This Report: American Greetings Mobile, Universal Music, YES Networks, Shazam, Loudeye, InfoSpace Mobile, Marconi, Toshiba, SmartVideo, Airborne Entertainment, Chilmark Media, Nokia, Samsung, LG and others...

By Rafat Ali, editor paidContent.org and MocoNews.net

Click here for how to buy.

Scary ringtones for nasty callers

This is London reports that mobile phone owners are using unflattering ringtones to help dodge "nuisance" calls from ex-lovers.

"Theme tunes to scary films such as The Exorcist are among the signals used as a warning that the call might not be welcome, a survey reveals today."

The most popular tone assigned by women for their former boyfriends was Independent Women by Destiny's Child.

Men used Britney Spears's Toxic and the M*A*S*H theme Suicide Is Painless, or in extreme cases, the theme from Jaws.

The study, for Tesco Telecom, found one in 10 phone users have a system warning the call is from work".

What kind of person sets their phone solely on vibrate mode?

I just love it when psychologists analyse people's choice of ringtones. I found this piece in Media Week, at the bottom of an article on media types and cell phones.

"According to psychologists, the ringer sound can say a lot about a person's character. Young professionals often choose popular music ringtones to show they fit in with the crowd, while an aggressive sales person who selects an action movie or TV theme is in someway compensating for a lack of drama in his or her own life.

Anyone in media who has never downloaded a song or wacky sound is probably too busy to bother or views a mobile phone as simply a functional business tool, say the experts. It is unclear what kind of person sets their phone solely on vibrate mode".

Related article on ringtone profiling:

-- What your ringtone says about you

-- Ringtones can reveal more about yourself that you might think

-- Ringtones: The new currency of cool

Zingy Announces Exclusive Mobile Content Agreement with Snoop Dogg

New York-based Zingy, a leading US mobile media company has announced an agreement with recording and film star, Snoop Dogg and becomes the exclusive distributor of ringtones, ringback tones and voicemail greetings featuring original voice recordings from Snoop Dogg.

"Mobile represents an exciting new channel for our artists to monetize their talents and connect with fans," said Vice President Strategic Marketing Constance Schwartz of The Firm. [TMCnet].

Ringtone Related domain names

Ringtonia's weekly listing of ringtone related domain names that have come up for sale and are available to the public again:

- 4freeringtones.com
- classicrockringtones.com
- jaruleringtones.com
- jenniferlopezringtones.com
- jloringtones.com
- loads-of-ringtones.com
- makemyringtone.com
- motorolat720ringtones.com
- nellyringtones.com
- nokia-ringtones-for-free.com
- nokia-ringtones-logos.com
- oldiesringtones.com
- punjabiri-ringtones.com
- ringtone-plaza.com
- ringtones-for-nokia.com
- ringtones-ringtones-ringtones.com
- samsunga500ringtones.com
- sayno5300ringtones.com
- t68ringtones.com

I registered ringbacks.com (which redirects to Ringtonia). I would be willing to sell it for a good price. Anyone interested can make an offer. Email: emily@netsurf.ch

Ringtone Download and Install Usability

A very informative article from PMN on how ringtone downloads fare by carrier.

"Scott Weiss from usable Products Company, evaluated handsets from three carriers: AT&T's Nokia 6800, T-Mobile's Motorola T720, and Verizon's LG VX400".

He explains the key methods for ringtone downloading and installing (WAP, J2ME and BREW), weighs their advantages and disadvantages and gives some figures:

"Ringtones are a huge revenue opportunity. According to The Economist, ringtone sales globally hit USD 3.5 billion last year (2003). In the US alone, USD 80 million of ringtones were sold. However, ringtone download and install usability varies from handset to handset and carrier to carrier".