Mobile Ringtones

The
first commercial mobile ring tones were created
and delivered in Finland in 1998 when a Finnish
mobile operator Radiolinja (today Elisa) started
their downloadable mobile ring tone service called
Harmonium invented by Vesa-Matti Paananen. The
Harmonium contained both tools for general public
to create monophonic ring tones and a mechanism
to deliver them over-the-air (OTA) via SMS to
a mobile handset and to bill customer on their
phone bill. The service concept spread quickly
in Europe and Asia and developed to be a multi
billion dollar industry globally. A ring tone
service was one of the very first successful m-commerce
services and contained also social media aspects
like composing, sharing and rating ring tones.
The Harmonium also created quickly a need for
high quality professional ring tones and commercial
ring tone libraries.
The
rise of video games has also contributed to the
popularity of ring tones. On August 5, 2006, the
BBC described "free ringtones" as a
dangerous search term, because of the risk of
malware and other malicious websites.
By
2005, ring tones generating more than $2 billion
in annual worldwide revenues. Real tones, which
are often excerpts from pop songs, have become
popular as ringtones.
Features
Whereas
older telephones simply used a pair of bells for
the ringer, modern ring tones have become extremely
diverse, leading to phone personalization and
customization.
Newer
mobile phones allow the users to associate different
ring tones for different phone book entries. Taking
advantage of these features, a new Ringtone Maker
trend has emerged. For example, websites like
Mobilephoria, Phonezoo, Phone Sherpa, and Dopetone
let users make ringtones from the music they already
own (MP3, CD etc.) and upload directly to their
mobile phone with no limit on the number of songs
uploaded. In addition to the cost benefits, a
key feature is the music editor that lets the
user easily pick the part of the song they wish
to set as a ringtone. Such services automatically
detect the phone settings to ensure the best file
type and format. There are however providers who
have already edited and trimmed the song for you.
Others
also allow users to create their own music tones,
either with a "melody composer" or a
sample/loop arranger (such as the MusicDJ in many
Sony Ericsson phones). However, these use native
formats only available to one particular phone
model or brand. Although other formats, such as
MIDI or MP3, are often supported; they must be
downloaded to the phone before they can be used
as a normal ring tone. Commercial ring tones take
advantage of this functionality, which has led
to the success of the mobile music industry. Southern
rapper Chamillionaire was the first to have a
ring tone go 3x platinum for the hit single "Ridin."
He now has his own category on certain phones.
The
latest innovation is the sing tone, a type of
karaoke ring tone where a user’s voice recording
is adjusted to be both in time and in tune then
mixed with a backing track to make a user-created
ring tone.
An
alternative to a ring tone for mobile phones is
a vibrating alert. It may be useful:
* In noisy environments
* In places where ring tone noise would be disturbing
* For those with a hearing loss (Credit:
Wikipedia).
Profiles
Yoot
Mobile
Jamster
Ringtones
Mobiles
Jamster
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