ringtones

Adios, "Adios Amor Te Vas."

The "Pink Panther" ringtone by Henry Mancini swapped with you from No. 3 to No. 1 last week. Now this week you crawled back up to second place pushing Mancini to third, only to be bested by Elton John's "Your Song."

Whether or not Sir Elton John's "Your Song" sans Ewan McGregor is really worthy of first-place ringtone status in America, is a debate for another site.

Still, it's good to be reminded of what's out there as an option for your own … Read more

Anytime Rick Carnes is out and hears a song played as someone's ringtone, well, it's like music to his ears.

Carnes, a songwriter for nearly three decades, laughs when he considers that his work is more valuable as a ringtone--just a few seconds of his music--than a full version of one of his songs downloaded from the Web.

"Where's the logic in that?" asks Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America.

Until last October, music publishers were able to pocket 10 percent of the retail price for a song, according to Steve Gordon, a copyright attorney. … Read more

I may have just found the best cell phone ring tones ever. They're not really ring tones per se, actually they're direct quotes, but you can still use them to indicate a call. Zingy is offering quotes from Airplane!, which I believe is one of the finest cinematic achievements of all time. Gems like "Stop calling my Shirley" and "I've haven't seen anything like this since the Anita Bryant concert" and "Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?" now can grace your otherwise ordinary cell phone. And if … Read more

While doing some research for our review of the 2008 Audi TT on Audi's Web site, we came across a selection of free downloads for your cell phone, including wallpaper and some very dynamic ringtones. If you're looking to pimp your cell phone and you dig Audis, then you're really in luck. If you just want to add some flair to your cell phone, well, the ringtones are pretty good. You can download ringtones named Energy Sweep, Melt Groove, or Moving Fast. They're all fast electronica clips that would make for pretty unique cell phone ringtones. … Read more

Fans of The Simpsons Movie will be pleased to know that you can now get the film's full soundtrack as cell phone ringtones. Among the available tunes are two versions of "The Simpsons Theme," "Doomsday Is Family Time," "Release the Hounds," and the catchy "Spider Pig." And these are real melodies, mind you, and not mediocre Midi jingles. Each clip costs $2.99 from Zingy or you can get three tones for $4.99. Now all you need is one of Samsung's Simpsons phones for the total experience. And don'… Read more

Who's responsible for the No. 1 ringtone in the land this week? We don't know. Billboard.com doesn't know, and they create the ringtone chart. Are you responsible? Please own up.

"NYSE Bell" by Unknown is the most-downloaded ringtone in America. We're assuming it's the sound of the New York Stock Exchange bell ringing, but there's really no way of knowing.

Locked in at No. 2 is a tune everybody knows: the "Super Mario Brothers Theme" by Koji Kondo.

And what else could follow a ringtone written by a Japanese … Read more

So in our excitement with the iPhone my friends and I all picked the "strum" ringtone on the iPhone. It's sunny, happy and seems to sound the best on the iPhone speakers. I think it's appealing to us since it sounds like the ads. With that, it's pretty confusing when our iPhones ring. A typical conversation: "Is it yours?" "No, it's my phone," followed by, "Oh, wait, no it really is my phone!" We're such geeks.

You can see where confusion lies. But this highlights the limited … Read more

MacRumors has confirmed that the forthcoming version of iTunes will contain a built-in ringtone creation utility for songs purchased via the iTunes Music Store. Users will be able to right-click on purchased songs and select "Make into Ringtone," which will give them a small audio workspace to select the 30 seconds they want to use as a new ringtone. According to MacRumors, the use of this feature will cost $.99 per track--a fee which goes toward licensing the music for your mobile phone. That means the total fee for a ringtone is $1.98.

There's no confirmation … Read more

The field for Web applications geared at independent music acts is almost as saturated as, say, video-sharing sites and social networking portals. Consequently, the new ones emerging these days are typically very niche-specific--in other words, find a feature that MySpace doesn't offer, create a Web site for it, and make sure you offer embeddable widgets.

Like this one, PocketFuzz, which just launched its new Web site. Pocketfuzz aims to make it easier for independent artists to offer mobile downloads--specifically ringtones, but also wallpapers and text-message alerts--and profit from the sales. It's free for artists to join, so the … Read more