ringtones

Some of my favorite cell phone apps and services are also the simplest. Thumbplay, a major content storage and sales company (coverage), gets that with its latest service for Web-enabled phones, Thumbplay GET.

It's essentially a link request and return service for Thumbplay's content offerings. Users text GET, followed by the artist's name or song title, to Thumbplay's short code, 48000. Seconds later a link is returned through text, which leads to the search results. Users can then click to purchase the download.

Though primarily positioned as a song and ringtone service, Thumbplay GET will also … Read more

I remember a time when making ringtones used to be a very cumbersome experience. My technique of choice was to use the open-sourced Audacity then do various conversions in iTunes or Quicktime Pro by tweaking some of the advanced settings. However, the Web has spawned newer, less tedious methods. On of them, Audiko, is a particularly well-done effort, letting you grab audio tracks from your hard drive or the Web and customize them for use on your mobile phone.

While I think ringtones of popular songs are largely annoying and superfluous, the tools to create them are actually quite fun. … Read more

In case anyone was wondering, the ringtone craze is officially out of control. Well past their cell-phone roots, custom tunes for home land lines are just one example of a phenomenon that has even extended to doorbells. But its application in car horns are clearly the worst of the bunch.

And accessories such as the "Wolo 485 Star Trek Air Horn," we fear, may indicate that the trend is gaining in popularity. For better or worse, this device blares only one tune with its five air trumpets--the theme from the final frontier--similar to the custom old-school horns that … Read more

Several months ago we thought the idea of custom ringtones for home phones was a pretty nifty concept that would be picked up by other manfacturers. Our prediction, naturally, was met with dead silence. But now Hammacher Schlemmer is trying to introduce one such gadget for the masses, claiming the technology as its very own by labeling it "the first home telephone custom ringtone player."

While the hype is to be expected, other aspects of this "first" are less excusable. For starters, there's the $70 price: Do its features really justify costing that much more … Read more

With so many "Best of 2007" lists, we couldn't let the year end without showing you the most popular ringtones of 2007. We didn't actually compile the results; instead we're relaying which tones were the most popular for AT&T customers. So here the are, the top tunes of 2007.

1. Shop Boyz - "Party Like a Rockstar" 2. Mims - "This Is Why I'm Hot" 3. Soulja Boy - "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" 4. Nickelback - "Rockstar" 5. Akon - "Don't Matter&… Read more

iPhone's aren't cheap and music isn't either. In this Insider Secrets video, CNET Associate Producer Randall Bennett shows you shortcuts for producing your own iPhone ringtones. He gets a little help from iTunes for Windows or Mac, GarageBand for Mac, and Audacity for Windows and Mac, our favorite freeware audio-editing rock star.

Thumbplay announced on Thursday a deal it just wrapped up with iLike, a music recommendation service big on Facebook, to exclusively stock iLike's virtual shelves with ringtones.

Thumbplay's ringtones are disguised on iLike.com by the generic command to "get ringtones," and placed alongside iTunes links. They'll also be sprinkled throughout the iLike Challenge game on iLike's site and will be available for purchase through the iLike Facebook app.

This is a definite win for Thumbplay. The mobile content distributor's limp Facebook app, a Photo Portal that pushes pictures uploaded from a Thumbplay … Read more

There's always potential for massive dorkiness when parents venture into a new pop culture arena like customized ringtones. I had stayed away from this trend, due to a general state of information overload as well as concerns about deceptive ringtone services that promise a free ringtone and then surreptitiously subscribe you to ongoing charges.

But this week I have been getting to know my iPhone better and the new version of iTunes has a ringtone function, so I decided to check it out.

The new iTunes feature is easy to use. You buy a ringtone-designated song from iTunes for 99 cents, select the snippet you want to use, and then pay another 99 cents to make it into a ringtone that you can upload to iPhone. Now there is theoretically a workaround that you can use to create free ringtone, but I can't vouch for it. For me, I wasn't going to sweat the $1.98, for which you do get the actual song added to your iTunes library.

Okay, getting the ringtone is easy, but who is there to solve the existential angst of deciding which song to use to announce the incoming call of that special someone? My husband Michael is a musician, so I didn't want any old piece of pop dreck to signal his calls. Given my taste, it was at least going to be a very special piece of pop dreck.

… Read more