Info about Ringtones
Ringtones
A ringtone also spelled in two words like ring tone is the sound made by a telephone or mobile phone to indicate an incoming call or text message. It isn’t actually a “tone”; the term is most often used today to refer to customizable sounds used on mobile phones. A ring tone maker allows a user to take a song from their personal music collection, select whatever section they like and send the file to their mobile phone. Files can be sent to the mobile phone by direct connection such as connecting the USB cord to the computer where the file is stores, or with Bluetooth, text messaging, or e-mail. The earliest ringtone maker was Harmonium, developed by Vesa-Matti Paananen, a Finnish computer programmer, and released in 1997 for use with Nokia smart messaging. Some ringtone providers allow users to create their own music tones, either by using a "melody composer" or a sample/loop arranger (such as the Music DJ in many Sony Ericsson phones). These often use encoding formats only available to one particular phone model or brand. 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.
When someone purchases a ringtone, an aggregator (company that sells ringtones) either creates their own tune or mixes together a pre-existing one. After the ringtone is created, it is put into a unique file format and sent to the person’s phone via SMS. If the company uses a pre-existing song, they will have to pay royalties to the person or company that owns the song. The owner of the song doesn’t get all of the money; a significant portion is given to the cell phone provider.
The fact that consumers are willing to pay up to $3 for each individual ringtone has made "mobile music" a particularly profitable part of the music industry. Estimates vary: the Manhattan-based marketing and consulting firm Consect estimated ringtones generated $4 billion in worldwide sales in 2004. According to Fortune magazine, ring tones generated more than $2 billion in worldwide sales during 2005. The rise and popularity of sound files also contributed to the popularization of ringtones. In 2003 for example, the Japanese ringtone market, which alone was worth US $900 million, experienced US $66.4 million worth of sound file ringtone sales.
Etiquette regarding ringtones has been one of the most controversial aspects of cell phone culture. Although often played for aesthetic value to alert a recipient of an incoming call, some individuals around the recipient could consider the ringing noise to be a disturbance such as those that are extremely loud or offensive, or just inappropriate for the current situation. Employers have been known to ban ringtones at work; one Australian company even goes so far as to fine its employees each time their ringtone sounds during a meeting. In another survey of cell-phone owning professionals, 18 percent felt that the worst cell phone etiquette offense was to cycle through a phone's ringtone list, playing them one by one, while riding public transportation. Another reaction towards the ringtones is that a certain culture has formed through the ringtones. People have started to identify themselves with their selected ringtones just as they did with their selection of mobile phones.