Wikipedia on "Ringtone"

Just for the fun of it, I looked up "Ringtone" in Wikipedia. Here's what they say:

A ring tone is the sound made by a telephone to indicate an incoming call. The term, however, is most often used to refer to the customisable sounds available on mobile phones. This facility was originally provided so that people would be able to determine when their phone was ringing when in the company of other mobile phone owners.

A phone only rings when a special "ringing signal" is sent to it. For regular telephones, the ringing signal is a 90-volt 20-hertz AC wave generated by the switch to which the telephone is connected. For mobile phones, the ringing signal is a specific radio-frequency signal.

On August 5, 2006, the BBC reported that "Free ringtones" was the eighth most likely search term to return links to malware.

Above cell phone image from www.easyringtonemaker.com

Ringtone guide to end soundalikes confusion

New rules to help people buying ringtones for their mobile phones distinguish between original songs and "soundalike" cover versions were unveiled yesterday in the UK, reports The Telegraph.

"The mobile phone industry says the guidelines will end confusion in the growing market for pop music downloads.

Under the initiative, companies will only be able to use the phrase "realtone" if they are selling a ringtone produced from an original recording "with the performer clearly identified in its marketing material".

The rules are being backed by the Mobile Entertainment Forum, the mobile phone company DX3 and major record labels."

Related:

-- Let's get this straight!

-- Ringtone Terminology

Ringback Tone Terminology

Along the lines of "Let's Get This Straight!", trying to make sense of ringtone terminology, here's another attempt, this time tracking the various terms used by different countries referring to ring back tones.

A ringback tone allows the mobile user to personalize the ringing sound that your caller hears when dialling your cell phone number.

-- Korea: Ringback tones, called COLOR Ring, were pioneered by SK Telecom. They launched in April 2002.

-- China: Shanghai Mobile announced the launch of a Rungback Service in August 2003 - Please note, this is probably not the real terminology, but just a translation of ringback tone service from Chinese into English (to rungback instead of ringback).

-- Japan: NTT DoCoMo launched a ring back tone service called iMode Melody Call, in September 2003.

-- USA: NMS Communications and Cellus USA, launched a ringback service, MyCaller, in October 2003.

-- Europe: T-Mobile was the first network in Europe to launch ringback tones in December 2003. It is variously called Ring-Tone Replacement or a Ring-Back Tone Service, but T-Mobile have decided to name it Caller Tunes.

-- India: Indian BPL Mobile, launched a Caller Ring Back Tone service in Mumbai, in June 2004.

-- Brunei: launched a ring back tone service, called WondeRing, in July 2004.

For links to articles on Ringback tones, check out this category in Ringtonia.com.

Let's get this straight!

This is an attempt to make sense of ringtone terminology. It's really quite confusing as different words are being used to describe the same thing, particularly with regard to real music played on cell phones. This post has been updated several times thanks to feedback from major players in this industry. The problem remains though, coming up with a single term for real music, i.e. clipped music from studio recordings, played on cell phones.

REAL MUSIC

-- MP3 Ringtones: users can download MP3 files (music or sound) from their computer onto their cellphone after installing special software. There is a copyright issue here.

-- Mastertones, Ringtone Masters, Truetones, Realtones, Music tones, , Real Ringtones and Musitones: all describe real music clipped from studio recordings, requiring a license from the record label.

If you really want to get to the bottom of this and understand who speaks what, take this: Sony calls them "Mastertones", V2 calls them "Realtones", Silva Screen Records calls them "Real Ringtones", Warner Music calls them "Ringtone Masters" (thanks Nick!), Cingular calls them "Music Tones" and Musiwave calls them "Musitones" (Thanks Charley!).

-- Ear Phones technology, provided in Germany's T-Mobile handsets - enables customers to download three CD-quality tracks to their phone.

-- Covers and Soundalikes: are steadily becoming their own catagory in the ringtones industry, mainly due to the fact that they do NOT require any license from the record labels, according to Chad Brazelton, Digital Content Manager at Sound Choice.

Brazelton writes "Covers and sound-alikes DO NOT require any license from the record labels, but they do from the music publishers, just as the record labels must license their versions from the publishers. But no fee of any sort is owed to the record labels as they do not have the rights to the cover version.  This is completely legitimate we (Sound Choice) have been doing this for 20 years now. We do not have to pay the record labels because we are the record company, using our own artists and not the traditional record labels artists". 

-- Hifi Ringtones: terminology used by hifi-ringtones.co.uk and Sagem to describe what is essentially a group name for all real music ringtones (ie. MP3, wav, smaf)

-- Chaku-uta: a successful MP3 ringtone service offered by KDDI Japan and approved by music labels.

SINGLE TERMINOLOGY SUGGESTIONS Have your say!

In article a couple of weeks ago, Eric Lin for TheFeature.com, suggested this industry adopt "Ringtunes" for real music. Sounds good to me. Anyone want to go with that?

Wesley Anderson, Product Manager - Eckoh Technologies - is suggesting the industry adopt the term "Truephonic" for real music. Anderson writes "I think consumers have been educated (especially in the UK market) to know the difference between monophonic and polyphonic tones. So I think the word Truephonic nicely illustrates to the customer that the real music is 'better' and has evolved past both mono and poly tones."

SOUNDS

-- Sound tones, Special Effects and Sound FX: play sounds of everyday life, from sound effects to funny noises.

-- Animal tones and Wildlife Sound Byte Ringtones: play animal noises. The latter comes from The British Library.

VOICES

-- Voice tones, Speechtones and Ringtalkers: play celebrity or comedy voices.

Just for the record, the terms "Special Effects" for sounds around us and "Speechtones" for human voices come from Proximus and "Ringtalkers", customized talking ringtones & sound clips comes from Verizon Wireless.

Slightly off the record, but a personal favorite, “name ringers”, a collection of ringtones made just for people with common names (Amy… Amy… Amy… Oh, Amy… Pick up the phone)

BACK TO BASICS

-- monophonic ringtones: play one note at a time with the melody of the song.

-- polyphonic ringtones: play several notes simultaneously, so the ringtone has a much richer sound.