Orange scoops digital music award

Fireplayer, an intuitive service that allows Orange customers to download real music files and remix them to create their own personalised mixes and ringtones on selected handsets, was voted the winner in the Best Use of Mobile category, reports PhoneContent.com.

"The Digital Music Awards champion the artists and industry players who have done the most to deliver music to music fans using digital media; whether that be via websites, download services, interactive TV, online radio or mobile phones. This year there were 17 award categories; 13 voted for by the public and 4 selected by a panel of industry experts."

Cell Phones Heed Call of the Wild

Cell-phone users in the United States will soon have the option to set their ringers to the song of the pied butcherbird, cry of the screaming piha or tremolo of a loon, among other critters, reports Wired.

Classic Ringtones, which offers about 40 different chirps, roars and calls from various animals, is launching in the United States in late November, after pioneering its nature notes in the United Kingdom last year.

And nice, "Executives are committed to giving the animals a cut of their success. "Songwriter's fees" of 10 percent of each sale will be donated to environmental and nature advocacy groups."

Related articles on animal tones:

-- Birdsong ringtones

-- Downloading animal-noise ringtones for a good cause

-- Ringtone for biology majors

-- More on animal noises made in the wild

-- "gorilla beating its chest" ringtone, courtesy of The British Library

Making the call as silly as the ring tone

PhoneBites, a San Francisco-based company, this week launched its Razz technology, which enables cell phone owners to interject witty--more often just silly--sound clips into their conversations, according to News.com.

The clips are packaged together and can be downloaded to a few advanced phones for about $2. During a call, a Razz user presses a button, and a clip is played.

The first group of clips is timely. It includes Halloween sounds and what the company calls Bushisms--clips of unflattering statements President Bush has said. PhoneBites is also working on clips from the crank-calling Jerky Boys.

For Razz to grow, it will also need to be available on more phones. Right now, the service can only be used with certain Nokia phones--the 3650, 6600 and N-Gage models. The sound clips and client application are loaded to the phones from a PC over a Bluetooth or infrared connection or over the air from the carrier.

"Frankly, this is a silly idea," Kirschner said, "but it takes advantage of the key feature of phones--conversations."

Related article: ”Bushisms” Become the Latest Cell Phone Craze as Consumers Get the “Presidential Razz”

Get a Ring From Kevin Lyttle

Atlantic Records is offering ringtones from Kevin Lyttle, reports Net Music Countdown.

"Titles include"Turn Me On," "Last Drop'" and "Screaming Out My Name." The service is only available for AT&T and Cingular wireless subscribers, and is limited to GSM phones.

Other artist's song ringtones available include selections from Ryan Cabrera, Fabolous and Jet."

Using Cell Phones as a Political or Business Tool

With days to go in the tightest, most contentious election in U.S. history, Audio Pirates, Inc., is offering Political Ringers, an entirely new method and medium to get political or other messages across: as audio and video content for MP3-enabled cell phones.

"Audio Pirates has assembled a wide range of fun, hip, political, musical and visual content for mobile users internationally. The company's wide range of artists, comedy writers and ringtone producers pour in, on a daily basis, unique and relevant messaging from around the world, according to a company press release.

"PoliticalRingers.com transforms cell phones into a powerful political, public relations and advertising tool."

Related services:

-- Election Special Ringtones

-- Presidential Voice Tones

Pick Up Your Cell Phone to be a Singer

Wanna-be-stars might have another chance to get an audition. KTF, the nation's second largest mobile carrier, announced Thursday that it will audition singer-wanna-bes through Magic n, its wireless Internet service. KTF will provide the winner with financial support to make his/her debut album. via Telecoms Korea.

"The preliminary contest will be a mobile audition and contestants who passed the first round are entitled to get an offline audition. A debut song of the winner will be serviced in forms of MOD, ring tone, music video, ring back tone".

Salsa ringtones, the next big thing

Wireless companies and record labels see salsa music as the next ring with bling for cellular phones, according to LA Daily News.

"Both industries are attempting to gain leverage in the Latin ringtone market, offering more merengue as a hook for Hispanic consumers. Industry executives say the demographic is relatively untapped for companies that sell ringtones.

The United States accounts for roughly 10 percent of the $3 billion ringtone industry. Mexico and South America account for a fraction of that now, but present a potential treasure trove for ringtone retailers."

Billboard Begins Tracking Cellphone Ring

Billboard is creating a Hot Ringtones chart, reports according to Fox41.com. It will track the songs that are downloaded to cellphones and are played when the phone rings.

Billboard will collect data from each of the major ringtone distributors and wireless carriers.

The chart will reflect the top 20 polyphonic ringtone sales for each week. It will include song title, artist, previous week's position and number of weeks on the chart.

The chart will make its debut in the November sixth issue.

Newbay Announces Mobile Content Sharing Application

NewbaySoftware today announced FoneShare, a mobile content sharing application. Using FoneShare, subscribers can buy, store and share mobile content such as ringtones, games, music, wallpapers and trailers.

FoneShare provides a community experience that promotes legal, viral distribution of mobile content amongst subscribers, according to a company press release.

S.J. firm customizes phone vibrations

Ring tones have led the craze for personalizing cell phones. Now get ready for "vibe tonz.''Immersion in San Jose has created a technology that allows cell phones to vibrate in unique ways to communicate information, reports the Mercury News.

"Such individualized vibrations can tell you that a call has been dropped or that a spouse is calling when the phone is in a vibrate-only mode, said John Grundy, vice president and general manager of Immersion's mobility business.

Immersion has released a software kit to enable phone makers and applications creators to customize vibrations for phones.

The technology doesn't work in current phones because it requires a slight tweak to a phone's hardware. Grundy said vibrating phones can do much more than just reproduce a song's beat. The vibrations are distinct enough that a user can make out the melody of a song just by feeling the vibrations, he said."

Games poor relation to ring tones

Mobile games are in danger of becoming the poor relation in a fast growing mobile entertainment market. British research firm, Ovum, says they represent only 5 to 20 per cent of the current market for handset 'personalisation. [via The Inquirer].

Ovum claims that ringtones are taking the lion's share of this segment which will be worth $6.5 billion in 2008 - or $9.3 billion if you include callback tunes as well.

The market was worth just $3.2 billion in 2003. However, another British research company, ARC, thinks the market for mobile entertainment in general will be worth a whopping $27 billion in 2008.

Snipnsend Ringtones

SLS Technology Inc. announces today the implementation of their flagship SnipSend application, a patent-pending software plug-in that allows Internet users to snip a segment of a real music song from a CD from their web browser and then send it to their mobile phone.

In simple 1-2-3 fashion, anyone can snip a segment from a favorite CD and send it to their phone and use it as a ringtone. There is no complicated software to learn. Everything happens by virtue of a flash-type plug-in web browser that connects the Internet to mobile users."

First Ringback Service launches in the US

Preferred Voice and First Cellular of First Cellular of Southern Illinois today announced the launch of a new personalized ringbacks service called Xtreme Ring for First Cellular's subscribers in the mid-west.

This marks the first commercial availability in the U.S. for ringbacks which have the potential to be the fastest growing mobile service this year, according to a company press release .

Wizard of the Wireless Future

Palm pioneer Jeff Hawkins explains why in business week one mobile device will soon do it all, how robots will evolve, and more.. via Rafat Ali for Moco News.

“The iPod is never going to be as big as the mobile phone, and it'll get absorbed. It may take five years, or it may take four. But why would you want to carry two things when you can carry one that's just as good? That mobile device will be the center of delivery for content.”

'Sex And The City' goes mobile

The latest in a series of branding efforts by various mobile carriers, Sprint will now be offering content themed on the HBO TV series "Sex And The City", reports InfoSync World.

"Content is available now on select Java-enabled Sprint "PCS Vision" phones, includes a "Sex And The City" branded portal, downloadable ringtones including actual clips from the show's theme song".

Telecom New Zealand (TNZ) is currently offering a service based on MiRingBack

"Lucent's MiRingBack service adds a new dimension of personalization to the communication experience by allowing users, such as teenagers, freedom to express their individuality, according to a company press release via MocoNews.

It also benefits corporate users by allowing them to play company messages and customized content for their business callers.

Each MiRingBack subscriber can create a wide variety of profiles for calling parties and may assign different tones to different calling parties. The service also offers a variety of call-control capabilities to subscribers, including the ability to select personalized time-of-day and special day messages, such as birthdays, and to define callers individually or callers belonging to groups.

In contrast with downloadable ringtones, which are stored on a user's handset, ringback tones reside on the network, allowing both mobile and wireline carriers to offer the service.

Additionally, because it is a network-based application, it offers sound quality superior to that available with ring tones that are downloaded directly to phones.

MiRingBack's low operating cost gives operators the potential to significantly increase ARPU (average revenue per user).

Replacing that 'brrring' with cash-earning tunes

The IHT has a good article on ring back tones.

"The ringback service has had some success in Europe. Vodafone Italy signed up 570,000 clients in the first two months. T-Mobile had a total of 500,000 subscribers for the service in Germany, Britain and the Czech Republic at the end of June. It is an idea that is still new to the United States.

Ovum, the technology consultancy based in London, predicts that the market for ring-back tones in Western Europe will be $16 million this year and will expand to $721 million in 2008, when the worldwide market for the service will be worth $2.4 billion.

In most cases, customers pay a monthly fee for the service, usually about euro 1, or $1.24, and then euro 1 to euro 3 per song. Subscribers can have many songs active at the same time and can designate a particular song for a specific person. Most operators are targeting clients under the age of 25, but analysts expect ring-back tones will also be popular with business users who could use them for sales and marketing messages."

ROBBIE WILLIAMS BECOMES FIRST ARTIST TO LAUNCH GREATEST HITS ALBUM ON MEMORY CARD

In an update on a earlier story today, IT News, reports that EMI Music UK has agreed a deal with The Carphone Warehouse which will make Robbie Williams the first artist ever to release an entire album plus video content on a Memory Card - a tiny stamp size gizmo that slots straight into a mobile phone to deliver music on the move.

Hanging on the musical telephone

Public telephone boxes could be used to download music under radical new plans being considered by BT, reports the BBC.

"It is currently in talks with a leading provider of digital music content about a deal which could transform many of its phoneboxes into virtual jukeboxes.

Customers may be able to access music at more than a thousand BT phoneboxes as early as next year.

The telecoms firm is exploring ways to modernise its network of 70,000 phoneboxes, 60% of which lose money.

Under the plans, anyone owning an iPod or portable music player would be able to go into a phonebox and download a song while out shopping or on a lunch break.

They would be able to pay using a credit card or a BT charge card.

BT hopes to introduce the new service next year, initially through its network of 1,200 information 'kiosks' which already offer internet access.

The kiosks are concentrated in city centre areas, with about 400 situated in London.

Providing access to music is seen as an opportunity to attract mobile phone users, who long ago deserted old-style phoneboxes, into BT facilities.

It could also provide a potentially lucrative new source of revenue at a time when BT is having to service a huge but unprofitable network of traditional phoneboxes.

BT has been trying to make its phoneboxes more user-friendly and relevant.

As well as providing internet access, its modern kiosks offer musical ringtones and discounts on accomodation while some are linked to cashpoints.

BT hopes that the new service will particularly appeal to tourists and younger users.

"It is not a total departure from what we have been doing but it would be new to be able to download to an MP3 player or an iPod," said Mr King.

Carphone Warehouse to launch mobile content brand

UK's biggest phone retailer Carphone Warehouse is next week launching its own mobile content brand, a move likely to have a significant impact in the market, according to Rafat Ali for MocoNews.

Play Mobile will market content under a number of sub-brands, including Play Top 10, Play Music and Play Tones.

jabbertones's political voice tones

Jabbertones, a ringtone startup focusing on voice-based content for mobile phones, has just launched a library of over 50 political voice tones containing original and quoted material by John Kerry, George Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger and other politicians; recorded by "sound alike" vocal talent artists.

China could top the music industry charts

Despite problems over piracy, labels are lining up to get into this booming market Beijing's Forbidden City pulsed to lasers, lights and the music of Jean Michel Jarre last Sunday, reports the Times Online.

Beamed live across China — a first — the audience for the concert was conservatively estimated at more than a billion.

The concert was another sign that after years of mistrust, the Chinese authorities are more open to the music industry — and the world's top music labels are lining up to get in.

[...] China is a nation obsessed by mobile phones. The market for musical ringtones is worth more than £1 billion. But new ways of doing business bring new risks.

Jay Berman, IFPI chairman, said: “China is an area of enormous potential. Piracy is still the defining issue, but I think the authorities are beginning to see now that they could have an export industry here. There is a lot of talent.”

Japanese to download full CD-quality songs to mobile phones

The Japanese will soon move to new frontiers in their passion for mobile telephones and pop music as customers will be able to download full-length, CD-quality songs onto their cellphones, reports the AFP.

"Japan's number-two telecommunications firm KDDI said Thursday it will offer a service of 10,000 songs with sound quality so good the music can be listened to on stereo speakers. Users can also use the tunes as ring tones.

Working with record labels, KDDI plans to allow users to download each tune for several hundred yen (several dollars) and eventually to expand the database of songs.

"We may be able to offer songs for downloads before CDs are officially released. That might serve as a sampler for people to decide whether to buy CDs of certain artists," said a KDDI spokesman.

With the new service, mobile phone users can listen to music without operating their PCs. That offers a new choice, a new way of enjoying music for consumers," he said.

The service, which begins next month, is called "Chaku Uta Full," or "Full Ringer Songs."

Since December 2002, KDDI has offered a hugely popular "Chaku Uta" service that allows mobile phone users to download parts of songs for ring tones.

The original Chaku Uta service has seen 120 million downloads or around 10 million per month.

For related articles on Chaku Uta, click on this category in Ringtonia.com

Orange To Launch Star Wars Film Content On Mobiles

Protones, the new ringtones firm set up at the beginning of this month by composers Bob and Barn in Cambridge, has secured rights to sell music from Star Wars, according to Cambridge News.

"The ringtones will be created from the original film score by John Williams."

Related articles:

-- Orange To Launch Star Wars Film Content On Mobiles - France's mobile operator Orange, said Friday it has signed a deal with Lucasfilm to launch science-fiction saga Star Wars content onto mobile phones. Content will include ring tones, images, characters and film clips as well as competitions.

-- ProTones - Ringtones made by award winning composers - A couple of BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) nominated composers who became fed up with the poor quality of ring tones of film and tv sound tracks have decided to have a go themselves.

first sales of full-length song downloads to mobile phones by year's end

There is another mass market on the horizon: Officials at Warner Music and other labels are predicting the first sales of full-length song downloads to mobile phones by year's end, reports the IHT.

Eric Daugan, Warner's new media director in France, sees a different audience for this mobile music than for the typical iPod-like player, which can hold thousands of songs. "That's for music nerds like me," he said. "Now we're looking at the 70 percent of the population that always carries a mobile phone."

Free MP3 Ringtone Now at MonsterTones.com

For a limited time, US mobile users can test their cell phone and receive a free MP3 ringtone or polyphonic ringtone at MonsterTones.com.

In their own words:

"Our goal is to provide you with the largest selection of ringtones on the net. Each week we add new ringtones, extending our database that includes rap ringtones, video game ringtones, rock ringtones and more."

Election Special Ringtones

Ringtone provider Uphonia.com offers a collection of presidential campaign ringtones (National Anthem, Stars And Stripes Forever, Hail to the Chief, America The Beautiful...) and election special graphics for both the democratic and republican parties.

Nokia Launches N-Gage Mobile Fan Packs

Nokia Tuesday said N-gage users can now customize their game deck with personalized ring tones, message alert tones and multimedia message animations, reports Cellular News.

"Nokia said N-Gage Mobile Fan Packs combine the sights and sounds from some of the most popular N-Gage games, which gamers can then use to personalize their Mobile Fan Pack includes items such as ring tones, message alert tones, multimedia message (MMS) animations, N-Gage Arena launcher skins as well as background images, Nokia said.

It said the N-Gage Mobile Fan Packs are downloadable from the N-Gage Arena for free for all registered N-Gage Arena users. "

Dwango releases environmentally-friendly ringtones

Engadget reports that ringtone provider Dwango is launching releases environmentally-friendly ringtones - "that blend into the aural background (and dispelling at a stroke the image their name conjured up of a fat kid with a propeller cap). So now your phone will ring with the sound of someone coughing, or cutlery jangling together, or a host of other “environmental” sounds."

Girls just want to have toys

Teen magazines are giving away gadgets and ringtones to shore up circulation. Lauren Proctor reports for the UK Independent.

Philip Cutts, director of marketing for the Periodical Publishers Association, says. "What we're seeing are shifting patterns, with brand-extension activity targeting readers through different touch points, such as digital TV and ring tones. The industry is merely undergoing change." If publishers move swiftly, new technology may yet prove to be the saviour of teen magazines after all.