13.6% Of US Mobile Users Downloaded A Ringtone In April

m:metrics‘ monthly Benchmark Survey has found that 24.58 million U.S. mobile subscribers — 13.6 percent — downloaded a ringtone in April, reports Moco News.

"The report found that 61% downloaded a ringtone from a carrier portal, 49% downloaded tones from the web and 5% purchased them via SMS shortcodes".

France Telecom, Warner Music Sign Music Distribution Partnership

France Telecom has signed a partnership agreement with Warner Music to distribute Warner Music's catalogue through its various services in France (including Orange, Wanadoo and its fixed-line network), Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The agreement will enable France Telecom's clients to download ring-tones, full length music tracks and music videos either via their Wanadoo internet access or on their Orange mobiles, as well as to use calling ring-back tones on their fixed lines.

[via Forbes]

EMI inks mobile music deal with Melodeo

Mobile music provider melodeo has secured a deal with EMI Music to make 200,000 full track mobile downloads available to mobile users in Europe, reports Netimperative.

"Seattle-based Melodeo provides music to subscribers through its “Mobile Music Solution”, which resides directly on the user's phone allowing them to shop, preview, purchase and download full-length music tracks.

The new deal will give Melodeo access to EMI's catalogue, which will include tracks from music acts such as Athlete, Coldplay, Faith Evans, Gorillaz, Norah Jones, Kylie Minogue, Joss Stone and Robbie Williams."

MEF Launches German Ringtone Charts

Candy Shop, originally recorded by 50 Cent, has become the bestselling ringtone in the first ever official German chart, launched by the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF), in conjunction with Deloitte and MusikWoche.

The chart notably featured several German artists such as Nena, Ich & Ich and Sarah Connor, while also highlighting the popularity of characters such as the home-grown Schnappi (the small crocodile) and the ubiquitous Crazy Frog.

[via 160characters.org]

Ringtones on McDonald Menu

Burning CDs, downloading mobile-phone ringtones, even printing digital-quality photos could soon be the newest things on the McDonald's menu, reports Chicago Tribune.

"In a bid to draw the young and tech-savvy into its restaurants, McDonald's has begun pilot testing a new ATM-style device called the Blaze Net, which allows customers to buy music, ringtones, print photos and surf the Web at the restaurant.

Open since last Monday, the new flagship restaurant near Oakbrook Center Mall in suburban Chicago combines several high-tech gadgets yet to be seen in more conventional McDonald's eateries.

The 60- to 90-day pilot test of the technology follows the initial introduction of similar equipment in Munich last November. That is now being rolled out into many of the company's 1,250 German restaurants".

SK Telecom buys major music company

SK Telecom, Korea's largest mobile service provider, took over YBM Seoul Records, the largest record company in Korea, reports JoongAng Daily.

The company said yesterday that it invested 29.2 billion won ($29.1 million) to buy 60 percent of the shares of the record company. "We wanted to acquire a safe source for music content," an SK Telecom official said.

SK Telecom currently operates Melon, a music portal for mobile phones, and is also the leading shareholder in TU Media, the only company that is offering satellite digital multimedia broadcasting, or DMB, services. Satellite DMB services include audio, video and data content transmission.

The purchase was the most recent in a line of similar investments."

The Mac Startup Sound

Some sound trivia from Music Thing via Gizmodo.

"Did you know that the Intel Inside jingle was written by someone who didn't really use computers? And that the Mac start-up sound wasn't a $$$ marketing exercise. It was a hack that was quietly dropped into the machine by an engineer with a home studio… "

Scientists study how music stirs memories

MSNBC has a wonderful article on a new study that backs the obvious notion that a song can evoke strong memories. It also reveals that you don't even have to hear a song for the past to come flooding back.

"The new study involved 124 people, average age 19, who were asked to choose from a list of old songs and pick the one that evoked the strongest memory. One group just saw the title, another saw the lyrics, the third saw the album cover or a photo of the artist. A fourth group heard a snippet of the song.

The participants ranked the vividness of their memories.

The recollections were extremely clear for each group, said researcher Elizabeth Cady. "Music is a big cue," she concludes.

Cady, a doctoral student in psychology at Kansas State University, cites the study as evidence for the pervasiveness of mass media, noting that many of the participants' memories were the same as her own.

The results will be presented this week at the American Psychological Society meeting in Los Angeles."

A Brief Description Of The Ringtone Market

United Press International has done a pretty good job of covering the ringtone market in the US…covering just about every angle. The article quotes heavily from Bob Bentz, who runs a ringtone-based blog at coolringtones.blogspot.com, who is portrayed as something of an expert. [via Moco News]

"Bentz said the service carriers have been the most successful, because “they have the best form of advertising” by being able to place their own products prominently on the phones…The next step has been real tones, which literally are clips of songs. Bentz said real tones have not yet taken off in popularity, because record labels are asking too high a percentage of the cost of a ringtone download. As a result, many companies are selling what he termed “clone cones,” which he described as “garage bands playing popular songs.”

Clone Tones

I missed this post on Moco News earlier this month, so here it is.

In Japan major record labels have banded together to prevent outsiders licensing music for truetones, a move which Clone Tones circumvents by recording the song with different musicians.

There's even a new ringtone blog about this “issue”, which is run anonymously…

Cell phones may be banned on school buses

Carroll County students may face new restrictions on cell phone use if a new policy is approved by the Board of Education, reports Gazette.Net.

The Board debated the appropriateness of cell phone use on school buses at a meeting Tuesday afternoon.

Officials say ringers are a distraction for drivers and the noises are a hazard to safety".

Young Mobile Users Most Interested In Music - Survey

Commercial-free radio over mobile phones and the ability to download music to phones are the two most interesting advanced mobile services to young adults, according to a recent study conducted by the Network Management Group consulting firm,, reports Reuters.

'Crazy Frog' becomes cult figure

Brand Republic explains the synergy that played out between the different medias that brought the Crazy Frog to this week's number one spot in the UK charts, outselling Coldplay's single, "Speed of Sound".

"In a great example of a fully integrated ad campaign where the connection between the TV, radio and poster activity is strong, the different media worked together to reinforce the Crazy Frog character.

The 'ding ding dididing' sound conjures up a image of the frog - surely one of the most annoying, but effective sonic logos ever.

Some great hype has gone hand-in-hand with the advertising. There are websites dedicated to Crazy Frog, with talk of releasing a dance mix of the ringtone as a single. On Radio Aid day in January, Chris Evans played Crazy Frog to Tony Blair during a discussion about mobile ringtones - an exchange that was then repeated in news bulletins across the day. Crazy Frog even made it onto Classic FM.

At a time when ringtones have overtaken sales of music singles, Jamster has been a phenomenal success. Crazy Frog alone has reportedly made it about £14m ($25.6m). Ringtones are now big business, worth an estimated £300m ($549m) in the UK alone.

More - The Crazy Frog: History and Success Explained

Mobile phone ring tone becomes hit single in Britain

A cellphone ring tone based on the sound of a revving Swedish mo-ped is set to top the charts in Britain, reports KBCI.

The tune is called "Crazy Frog Axel F." And one music retailer says it's outselling the new single by the band Coldplay by nearly four to one.

One music industry experts say it's the first cellphone song to cross into mainstream music charts.

RingerNews.com

Good News. RingerNews.com is back! Don't forget to check it out for ringtone news.

Napster Claims 100K Ringtone Downloads

Napster, which launched its ringtone store earlier this month, said it had sales of more than 100,000 Napstertones since the mobile phone service was launched with Dwango Wireless on May 9th. [via Moco News.

Related article: - Napstertones - The new consumer service will provide ringtones, artist voice "shoutouts," wallpapers and other graphics from Napster's library.

deviceprofiles.net

Something of interest to ringtone developers, mobile media developers, mobile game developers and mobile content providers.

deviceprofiles.net is a service offering a licensable database of information about phone audio capabilities with 400 phones in its database to date.

Ringtone developers, mobile media developers, mobile game developers and mobile content providers can now use the database to access detailed information about the audio capabilities of an extensive listing of 400 phones, PDAs and handheld devices.

The database includes information about ringtone format support, content distribution mime types, Digital Rights Management support and device audio integration with multimedia.

Samsung SGH-Z300 3G musicphone

Engadget reports on a new Samsung 3G musicphone (the SGH-Z300 - do they really think anybody can remember that?) which boasts an interesting feature, "an onboard digital power amp to boost the audio signal for extra clarity".

Nothing yet pricing or it's release date.

Watchtone is a video ringtone

Makayama Software is introducing Watchtones, a new software and service for Nokia phones based on Symbian Series 60. The Watchtones are ringtones with fullmotion video and real sound. [via Geekzone].

In their own words:

A watchtone is a video ringtone. On incoming calls, you will see a cool video with music. In fullscreen, with amazing video quality and excellent sound. The name of the caller will be displayed over the video, if it is stored in your contacts. The watchtone application will auto-load when you start your phone. Watchtones is compatible with all Nokia Series 60 phones"

WSJ: Music phones no iPod killer

Today's Wall Street Journal argues that music oriented mobile phones may not be "iPod killers" like Bill Gates and others are saying. Quoting the article:

IPods are superb examples of design -- navigating between thousands of songs is only easy because Apple engineers made it so. Designwise, many cellphones are a lot like icebergs: one function obvious, the rest submerged and navigable only by the brave. It's a big leap of faith to think handset makers can approach the iPod's ease of use with a jack-of-all-trades device. Apple's competitors haven't managed it with their standalone devices, and they've had years to try.

Many analysts have called 2005, "Year of the music phone." Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, LG, and others have announced music centered devices recently. Most have not begun shipping yet, but Q4 will see a lot of competition of music phones.

This summer Motorola should take the wraps off the first iTunes phone as part of its partnership with Apple.

[ via MobileTracker ]

The Crazy Frog: History and Success Explained

Few people have heard of Wernquist, a 27-year-old Swede, but even those who haven't may still appreciate his gesture. He - perhaps more than anybody else - is responsible for the Crazy Frog, according to The Telegraph.

"The story of the frog starts in 1997 when Daniel Malmedahl, a Swedish 17-year-old, recorded his impersonation of the sound made by the two-stroke engines of his friends' scooters. His recording raised chuckles, and he put it on the internet, and was even asked to perform it on Swedish tele-vision.

For years, members of the online community who surf the web for fun, found it and laughed before telling their friends. The recording grew increasingly popular and, in 2001, was used in the Insanity Test, an online joke. If you could listen to the sound and stare at a picture of a red Formula One car for more than 60 seconds without laughing, you passed the test: you were clearly insane.

In 2002, Wernquist, a designer of 3D-graphics, took the test and chortled. He didn't know where the sound came from but, using his computer skills, he spawned the frog character, which he called The Annoying Thing, and created an animated cartoon which he posted on the website of his company, Turbo-Force 3D, where it is still available free of charge.

When he created the frog, he did not even know who had made the noise. His website included a request for the creator of the sound to contact him. A friend of Malmedahl's saw it and put the two in touch by phone. To this day, Wernquist and Malmedahl, who now sells computer components, haven't actually met.

It was only in 2004, that a worker at Jamba!, a German ringtone company, spotted its popularity on the internet and put it forward as an idea to his bosses. Markus Berger-de Leon, chief operating officer of Jamba!, says: "All of us saw it, the whole executive team, and we thought 'This is going to be big'." They approached Wernquist and Malmedahl and bought the rights.

Anyway, the frog teaches two business lessons.

-- Its success relied on the pairing of the internet and mobile phones. Without the web, the sound would probably be languishing on a tape somewhere.

-- And, while advertising played a role, the frog's success was built largely on the viral marketing of teenagers texting one another.

[...] What is more, no shops have been involved. The frog has been sold direct via SMS text messages and over the internet.

Indeed, the frog illustrates one of the most striking aspects of the mobile-phone-content business: the way it is evolving outside of traditional media companies rather than within them.

Celebrating a band, a rock star and his message

U2's Bono in concert continues to sollicit his fans to pull out their cell phones and hold them aloft, to fill the stadium with the soft blue glow of the phones' displays.

And standing in United Center on May 12 was like standing in a moonlit field, gazing at a velvet canvas of stars. About a quarter to a third of the 24,000 U2 fans raised their phones.

Then, above the stage, the phrase, "Text your name to UNITE (86483) appeared, the One Campaign to raise awareness about global poverty and AIDS."

Would people spend more time fumbling with their phones than absorbing the concert?

Would all 24,000 fans text in, connecting themselves to a rock star, his cause and the thousands of strangers who sincerely want to change the world?

Yes, it turns out. There were 1,980 names text messaged to UNITE that evening, according to representatives of Sun Microsystems. At every stop on U2's tour, the networking company is charged with collecting the text-messaged names.

Thousands of people digitizing the time-honored flame tribute, bonding by text message — even though they had different wireless carriers — and celebrating a band, a rock star and his message.

Related article: Cell phone concert craze

The Ringtone Dancer

This may be one of the craziest things I've ever seen; the Ringtone Dancer.

[via waxy.org via eyebeam reBlog]

Sound start for handset downloads

Help is at hand for those frustrated by the difficulties of getting ringtones, games and wallpaper on their phone, reports the BBC.

"Israeli firm Ki-Bi has invented a card-based system that it claims makes downloading content much easier.

When held against a phone's speaker the chunky cards play a series of tones that connects the handset to an operator's portal. Pressing other buttons on the card starts the download of whatever it is that customers want on their handset."

Music video channel set for mobiles

Music videos will shortly be available via mobile phones following a US partnership between Smart Video and the Digital Music Network, according to Netimperative.

"The two have joined forces to launch an advertising-supported video channel available via phones or “smart” devices equipped with a WindowsMobile Media Player.

The free service launches in early June across the US and will spread across other territories shortly after.

The music channel will feature Top 40 hits programmed from the DMV Network. Ads will overlay the videos and be played during 15-second interstitial spots between them."

Ringtones play out in a $50m market

The Australian ringtone market might have hit its highest note. After years of explosive growth the market - said to be worth up to $50 million a year - has reached a peak, say observers, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

"Consumers are already moving away from mono and polyphonic renditions of popular songs to download the real thing to a new generation of mobile phones that can take MP3 music files.

"It is certainly the case that, from a revenue point of view, [ringtones are] growing as people upgrade from mono and polyphonic to true tones, but as far as individual downloads is concerned the market has stabilised," said Virgin Mobile brand director Andy Mallinson.

Now only 5 per cent of all phones have the ability to play MP3 files.

Another reason cited for the slowing growth is the strength of services such as Jamster which require users to subscribe a monthly fee and which are spending millions in advertising on pay TV each month.

Some in the industry blame Jamster for putting younger mobile phone users - now facing monthly bills - off ringtones."

'mobile17' Pioneers New Features for Mobile Phone Users

smashEMPIRE, launched by 18-year-old Ben Guild, opened its first service this week, dubbed "mobile17", pioneering innovative new features to cellphone users such as its "mobile podcasting" ability, allowing anyone to transfer pre-recorded Internet radio broadcasts made for Apple's iPod ("podcasts") to their mobile phone as a series of ringtones, absolutely free.

mobile17 can take any podcast and transfer it straight to your mobile phone so you can listen to it on-the-go.

mobile17 also enables consumers to create their own ringtones and graphics from their music and photos and now offers a service for bands, artists, and distributors to sell and profit by offering mobile content online.

[ via PR Newswire ]

Coca-Cola' partners with Shazam

Coca-Cola' today announced a partnership with Shazam Entertainment to deliver a mass-market mobile music promotion across ‘Coke' and ‘Diet Coke'.

The promotion will offer ringtones as well as music downloads as daily prizes, and by offering a mobile music identifying service that acts as a shortcut for getting music on your mobile.

There are 5,000 ringtones or music downloads to be won every day through a daily draw.

As a reward just for entering, all participants get a CokeTag. CokeTag is a music identity service, that allows users to identify and purchase music, and in this case choose this music if they win in the daily draw.

To use CokeTag, entrants dial 62345 on their mobile phone and hold their handset close to the music. Once dialled, the call automatically ends after about 20 seconds and an SMS is sent, giving details of the artist and title, which they can then go on to choose as their prize in the daily draw, or if they don't win, choose to purchase.

The promotion will run from mid-May to the end of July, generating 5,000 winners every day, equating to a total of 300,000 free ‘Coke' music products. The entire UK stock, approximately 275 million individual products, will be branded during the two-month promotion. [via e-mail press release]

MyCokeMusic

Shazam

Young people spend £165m a year on mobile music

Young people in the UK are spending around £165m ($303m) on mobile music a year at present, with the figure expected to nearly double to £311 ($575) by 2007, according to new research. [via Netimperative]

"The figures, from the mobileYouth 2005 report, revealed that on average, young people in the UK spend about £1.08 ($1.98) a month on music downloads with the figure set to almost double to £1.96 ($3.60) by 2007.

The report found that young people contribute 86% of all mobile music revenues in the UK. However, 15-24 year olds are the key mobile music audience and account for 80% of all spending on mobile music."

Why your next stereo will be a cellphone

Canada's Globe and Mail has an interesting article on the convergence of music and cell phones.

"The emergence of the personal music player is the hottest category of personal electronics, maybe right now, beside cellphones,” says David Woodcock, director of product management for mobile devices at Motorola Canada Ltd. “There's a good deal of alignment between people who carry cellphones and people who might want to listen to music. It just makes good sense to integrate those two together.”