Global Market for Cellphone Ring Tones Is Shrinking

After years of double-digit growth rates, the global ring tone market appears to have come to the end of its crescendo, according to a variety of measures. The New York Times reports.

"In some parts of the world, ring tone sales are actually declining, and the former ring tone kings, like Jamba of Germany and Musiwave of France, are refocusing their businesses on other ways to personalize cellphones.

A couple of years ago, there seemed to be no upper limit to the sale. But the market changed in unexpected ways. For one, more mobile phones were being made with the ability to create or record their own tunes. For another, record labels promoted so-called master ring tones — excerpts from the original pop recordings — for about the same price as the knockoffs but with higher royalty fees."

And digital music stores like iTunes began packaging and selling ring tones alongside their 99-cent singles."

Related article: - Ringtone market comes to the end of its crescendo

Ringtones To Help Keep Your New Year's Resolutions

The folks over at Thumbplay have created a whole slew of ringtones to help you keep your resolutions -- or at least keep you entertained while you break them one by one.

For $2.99 per tone -- or a $9.99 monthly that gives you 20 ring tones on the spot and another 10 every month -- you can download ringers that remind you to hit the gym, quit smoking, and even tolerate calls from your mother in law.

[via switched]

Warner agrees to use MP3 format

Warner Music Group is making its music available for download from Amazon in MP3 format without copy protection. The BBC reports.

"Warner had been holding out against using the format because MP3 tracks are easier to share between users and may be freely burned onto CDs."

Endangered Animal Ringtones reaches 100,000 free downloads

A wildlife conservation group, The Center for Biological Diversity, which has been offering free cell phone ringtones for a year now - with the sounds of any of 70 rare and endangered birds and animals - has provided 100,000 free downloads to people in 150 countries, according to center spokesman Jeff Miller. cbs5.com reports.

"The sounds can be downloaded from the center's endangered species at Rare Earthtones. Users can also download photos, cell phone wallpapers and facts about each species."

Related links to endangered species ringtones

Apple working on auto-volume control for iPhones

According to UK's Daily Mail amid growing fears that listeners could cause irreversible damage to their hearing - the highest setting is as loud as a chainsaw - Apple is developing an automatic volume control.

"A new patent reveals that the next iPods and iPhones could automatically calculate how long a person has been listening and at what volume, before gradually reducing the sound level.

The device will also calculate the amount of "quiet time" between when the iPod is turned off and when it is restarted, allowing the volume to be increased again to a safe level.

The patent states: "Since the damaging effect on users' hearing is both gradual and cumulative, even those users who are concerned about hearing loss may not behave in a manner that would limit or minimise such damaging effects."

[via Crave]

Merry Christmas Everyone!

We've been elfed!

Ringo Starr To Release Wristband Album and Ringtones

Ringo Starr's forthcoming album 'Liverpool 8' will be released as a USB wristband.

The wristband album, Ringo's first back with EMI since 1974's 'Goodnight Vienna', will feature the full entire album also on CD, a personal video message, an interview, a track by track commentary, behind the scenes footage of the making of the album plus ringtones and photos.

To launch the album, Ringo will head back to his original hometown, Liverpool in England for a concert performance on January 8th.

Top AT&T Ringtone For 2007

AT&T on Thursday released a list of the Top 10 most downloaded ringtones, revealing that mobile users are hungry for music by popular artists instead of polyphonic sounds created specifically for cell phones. TechWeb reports.

AT&T's Top 10 list revealed that out of the 40,000 ringtones it offers, the most popular ones are the carrier's music tones.

They are as follows:

1. "Party Like a Rockstar" by Shop Boyz
2. "This Is Why I'm Hot" by Mims
3. "Crank That" by Soulja Boy
4. "Rockstar" by Nickelback
5. "Don't Matter" by Akon
6. "Buy You A Drank" by T-Pain
7. "A Bay Bay" by Hurricane Chris
8. "Beautiful Girls" by Sean Kingston
9. "Pop, Lock & Drop It" by Huey
10. "Big Girls Don't Cry" by Fergie

Ringbacks Could Feature Ad

The number of U.S. ringback subscribers tripled last year, according to M:Metrics. WebPro News reports.

A recent J.D. Power and Associates study also found that 9 percent of U.S. mobile consumers used ringbacks.

IDC estimates that 40 million global users will subscribe to ringback tones by 2010.

"In North America, 10.8 million people are using ringbacks today," said John Orlando, vice president of marketing at NMS Communications LiveWire Mobile. "Places like Spain are north of 10% penetration, India is near 40% and markets like Korea have stabilized around 60%."

In a likely unpopular move ringbacks could include advertisements. Subscribers friends would be forced to listen to the ads. The subscriber would receive discounts on mobile content or free minutes, and the mobile provider would collect the ad revenue."

Related: - Jajah Ring-back tones to carry adverts

"Don't Tase Me, Bro" ringback tone

"Don't Tase Me, Bro," a phrase that swept the nation after a college student used it seeking to stop campus police from throwing him out of a speech by Sen. John Kerry, was named on Wednesday as the most memorable quote of 2007.

Meyer's quote was a symbol of pop culture success. Within two days it was one of the most popular phrases on Google and one of the most viewed videos. It also showed up as a ringback tone on Verizon and T-shirts.

[via Reuters]

Rock The Vote celebrity ringtones

The AT&T and Rock the Vote campaign will feature exclusive celebrity ringtones that promote the importance of voting, text-polling, reports from student journalists and event sponsorships, among other initiatives.

Rock the Vote's mission is to build the political clout and engagement of young people in order to achieve progressive change in our country. Rock the Vote uses music, popular culture and new technologies to engage and incite young people to register and vote in every election.

[via CNN]

NapSounds to make you very, very sleepy

Napsounds will put you to sleep and help you benefit from a power nap.

Hopepfull someone will make this available to mobile phones. Spotted on Canada.com.

Cellware.com uses ad $ to reward content creators

Cellware.com, a site that hopes to offer both user-generated content and professionally produced offerings from partners including 4INFO, Arphiola and HanaHo Games.

The site, which is currently in testing, uses advertising revenue to reward users who create popular mobile ringtones, videos, games and applications.

[via RCR Wireless News]

Icelandic Inventor Creates Mobile Guitar Tuner

Gudmundur Freyr Jónasson, a Masters student in computer sciences at the University of Iceland, has invented a guitar tuner which can be used through mobile phones. The Iceland Review reports.

"Jónasson said it is easy to use the mobile guitar tuner. “Those who need to tune their guitars either call a service center or use a program in their cell phones. It works the same way as many games that cell phones have.”

“The program compares tones from the guitar to standardized tones. Then the variation is shown with a graphic on the cell phone’s screen,” the inventor explained.

Jónasson’s project recently received an award from the University of Iceland and he is now working on establishing a company to market his mobile guitar tuner. "

The 2007 mobile music market: "It's the device, stupid."

The 2007 mobile music market could be summed up in one phrase: "It's the device, stupid."

And though no mobile music service or associated innovation gained even a fraction of the attention that Apple did by unveiling the iPhone, that story certainly helped shine a spotlight on other mobile music developments, if only by means of comparison.

And believe it or not, there were other milestones in mobile music throughout the year.
Read full article by Reuters with a recap.

Ringtone market comes to the end of its crescendo

According to the IHT, the global ringtone market is coming to the end of its crescendo, depending on how you measure.

"In some parts of the world, ringtone sales are actually declining, and the former ringtone kings, like Jamba of Germany and Musiwave of France, are reorganizing their businesses to focus on more profitable ways for consumers to personalize their cellphones.

The market changed in unexpected ways. For one, more mobile phones were being made with the ability to create or record their own tunes. For another, record labels actively promoted so-called "master ringtones" - excerpts from the original pop recordings - for about the same price as the knockoffs but with higher royalty fees. And digital music stores like iTunes began packaging and selling ringtones alongside their 99-cent singles."

12 Ringtones of Christmas Campaign

User-generated mobile content site Zedge as partnered with more than 60 labels, artists and managers, for its 12 RINGTONES OF CHRISTMAS promotion.

To access, fans go to the www.zedge.net/christmas to discover featured artists and the entire roster of artists, with profiles and free mobile content from each of them.

From there, fans can browse profiles, follow links to artist sites, and for those that want to download wallpapers, videos and ringtones, there are links on each page for all the content available from Zedge for that artist.

Along with their contributions, all artists created their very own profile page they can share with other users. The profiles feature their latest news, album drops, tour dates, biographies, and relevant links to their own sites.

[via Press release]

Apple Officially Lets You Create Your Own iPhone Ringtones For Free

Apple has added the capability to allow users to create their own ringtones in GarageBand and export them to the iPhone. You need to have the latest 4.1.1 version of GarageBand 8 running. It takes about 5 minutes from start to finish, and you can even use songs from your iTunes library.

And it's all very easy to do, according to Information Week who explains how.

Nigeria gets religious ringtones for mobile phones

The South African mobile telephony provider MTN has just launched a series of "Islamic ringtones" in Nigeria, targeting the West African country's some 70 million Muslims.

"Go express your faith," urges MTN in a full-page newspaper advertisement for its "Islamic melodies".

[via IC Publications]

Napster rolls music channel via NTT DoCoMo

Napster is now providing music content for a new mobile music feature that will be available to customers of Japan's leading wireless carrier, NTT DoCoMo.

[via Business of Cinema]

Nokia partners with The Cloud for music access

Nokia announced an agreement with European wireless broadband provider The Cloud to offer its customers free access to the Nokia Music Store at over 7,500 Wi-Fi hotspots.

Cloud subscribers can connect to the Nokia Music Store via laptop computer or optimized Nokia device.

[via FierceMobile Content]

EMI builds music microsites for iPhone

EMI announced yesterday that it's making use of the roaring success of Apple's iPhone and iPod touch by marketing music products directly at owners of these gadgets. The English super-label is building a series of microsites to promote new albums and DVDs being put out by its artists.

The first campaign EMI is launching will promote the new DVD from Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós. The Heima music DVD will be promoted using a special mini site designed especially for the iPhone and iPod touch's display and interactive interface.

[via Tech.co.uk]

Personal locator could make Your Car Moan Like Jenna

Not related to cell phones, just fun. Chevy just invented a device that would help you locate your car in a parking lot, bringing a new level of personalization. You can add your own sound, whatever that may be. "Even Jenna moantones", suggests Auto Moto & Gadgets.

AFP To Offer Video Clips As Ringtones

News agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) has signed a deal with Vringo to make its news video clips available as mobile video ringtones.

The service lets people set video ringtones to incoming callers, and also to assign themselves a video ringtone which is viewed by people they call (if that person is also a subscriber to Vringo, and on their buddy list).

[Press release via Moco News]

Verizon sells a "Don't tase me, bro" ringback tone

A clip of Andrew Meyer politely asking the University of Florida cops to refrain from Tasing him ended up on Verzion's ringback tone web shop.

[via engadget:mobile]

Apple calls the tune in mobile music

Apple's iPhone has set off an avalanche of traditional mobile phone operators into the music market, fearing that a vital source of revenue could be seized from under them. The Times Online reports.

"The market has huge potential: consumers could be spending as much as $32 billion a year buying music on their handsets by 2010, analysts believe. And the success of the iPhone - Orange sold 30,000 in five days – has served to focus Vodafone and its rivals on trying to snare a chunk of the revenue.

-- In September Vodafone, the world’s biggest mobile company, offered subscribers access to a vast catalogue of music for less than £2 a week. It dubbed the service, which lets consumers download the latest tunes regardless of their location, a “completely new movement within mobile music”.

-- Last week Nokia, the world’s biggest mobile manufacturer, went further by promising buyers of its handsets free access to millions of songs for a year. One analyst described the service, offered jointly with Universal, as a potential “game changer”.

Meanwhile, a study by Informa Telecoms & Media found that both the mobile operators and the music industry were “staking much of their future in this market”.

... Edgar Bronfman, the chairman and chief executive of Warner Music, has described the mobile platform as “by far and away the biggest opportunity for entertainment generally and music specifically”. But he also said that if phone companies did not smarten up their act and offer more competitive services, they would be forced to “watch their share of the opportunity diminish” as the likes of Apple cash in.

Kylie Minogue site unites fans via cell phones

Kylie Minogue fans now have a new way to indulge their obsessions -- via mobile phone. Reuters

"Kyliekonnect.com, launched November 2 to coincide with the digital release of her single "2 Hearts," combined universal handset access with the concept of an Internet fan community. It may well be the first artist-based social networking platform of its kind.

Members can create a profile, write blogs, upload photos, download content and connect with other fans all over the world by mobile phone or Web browser. Minogue maintains her own Kylie Konnect profile where fans can access regularly updated news items, blog posts and a photo gallery.

The site has drawn more than 10,000 users."

3 turns on Non Stop Music

British operator 3 announced the launch of Non Stop Music, a new service delivering unlimited access to genre-based music streams ranging from dance to classic rock for 49 pence (about $1) per 24-hour cycle.

Developed in conjunction with Ericsson, Non Stop Music promises eight different channels, each on a four-hour loop.

[Fierce Mobile Content via Press release]

Music industry betting on mobiles

The music industry and retailers are hoping mobile music downloads will reverse the decline in music sales. The BBC reports.

... "CD sales might be tumbling but digital music sales are steadily increasing. Unfortunately digital growth only accounts for a tenth of overall music sales, so they are still not making up for the shortfall generated by CDs.

There is one territory which is bucking this trend though. Digital music sales in Japan are sufficient to offset the loss made by CDs. In fact, Japan saw a 1% rise in music sales last year. Industry observers attribute this rise to mobile music downloads.

... Downloading via mobile offers the user the ability to browse a store's back catalogue, purchase and download music all via a mobile phone while on the move, cutting out the need to download songs using a computer."

Polly-Phonic

A Huddersfield man says he's had to change his ringtone five times - because his parrot keeps copying them.

Stuart McNae says Billy waits until he leaves the room, then mimics the sound of a call - and laughs when he dashes back to answer.

Every time Stuart, 54, changes his ringtone the cheeky blue-fronted Amazon picks up the new one, reports The Sun via Ananova.

Related:

-- Birds mimic ring tones

-- Mockingbird sings ringtones

-- Dog sings ringtones