: Guardian on the rise of the ringtone market with label-loving teens leading the growth.
: Egami Media enters the video ringtone market in Japan and South East Asia by exploring the signing of a non-exclusive agreement with Foreal.
: From Mark Frauenfelder:
The more exciting news is that Nokia vice-president Lee Epting says that she wants to encourage people "making ringtones, icons and other content and giving it out free to other users."
: Just as the Academy awards drive fans to movie theatres, the Grammy Awards are doing the same for the ringtone industry. Ringtone providers are bracing themselves for additional sales when artists win Grammys next week. More here.
: Boost Mobile's "Anthem 05" ringtone featuring Kanye West, Ludacris and The Game has raised over $65,000 to benefit The United Negro College Fund, The Ludacris Foundation and Chicago State University Foundation. More here.
: Music to the bottom line
: Mike Masnick on the ringtone market imbalance
: A generation after the birth of portable tunes on the Walkman, technology has made music available nearly everywhere for today's on-the-go consumer - and the recording industry sees a new wave to ride. More here.
: VeriSign’s new business in selling silly songs to mobile phone users is gathering all the attention at the moment. More here.
: Preferred Voice announces “Meet the Fockers” ringback tone service with Versaly Entertainment.
: Ingrooves launches mobile-only music label including exclusive and custom ringtone content.
: SDC announces new standards based DRM solution for Mobile Music
: From 3G Portal:
Leading the mobile music revolution are the technically superior 3G handsets and phone networks that are starting to be spread around the world. Technologically-savvy Asia is leading the way but the market is starting to take off in Europe and will start to be rolled out in Australia and New Zealand shortly.
: Ericsson unlocks mobile media potential at MIDEM:
"M-USE, the mobile music service developed by Ericsson in cooperation with the music industry. M-USE delivers to consumers personalized mobile music content such as music-clips, ring-tones, artist pictures, full length songs, video-clips, recommendations, music news and much more. Other services will be shown like personal greetings, as well as music-video streaming and Ericsson's payment solution IPX."
: Plugging the gaps in Mobile Music Market - Although record labels seem to be embracing and supporting the mobile music market, they still have a lot of doubts and concerns. Normally, the Internet can provide some guidance as to what may or may not work in the mobile industry, but for the record labels, the lessons from the Internet are still far from clear.
: 80s pop stars are also getting into the ringtone market by composing their own tunes. More here.
: Porn Star Jenna Jameson teams up with Wicked Wireless to provide music, R-Rated wall paper and her own branded of ringtones (Moantones) to cell phone subscribers in Central and South America. More here and here.
: Chaoticom to supply EMI Music songs to its European carrier partners such as Orange (United Kingdom), Telenor (Norway), Eurotel (Czech Republic), Pannon (Hungary).
: Business Week on how US operators, without much needed expertise, want to build mobile music services by themselves, instead of partnering with mobile music service providers. More here:
"Musiwave, a startup based in Paris, provides mobile music services to such carriers as Europe's Vodafone, France Telecom's Orange unit, and Spain's Telefonica. The privately held outfit hasn't signed up any customers in the U.S. "We find the wireless business model in the U.S. very unusual," says founder and Chairman Gilles Babinet. "Wireless carriers in the U.S. want to do everything for themselves. But they don't have the expertise to run a music business, which is why we tell them they would be better off -- and make more money -- working with a company like Musiwave."
The wireless industry's business model in Europe is similar to the pioneering road paved by DoCoMo in Japan. The latter opens its wireless networks to thousands of entertainment and news companies, which pay a small percentage of their revenue to DoCoMo, Babinet says.
That business model is slow to take off in the U.S., especially when it comes to music. Wireless carriers fear that their brand will be overshadowed by entertainment providers, relegating cellular service to commodity status. Their fears aren't baseless, although that dire scenario isn't inevitable, Baca says."
: From Ringtonia:
"Buongiorno Vitaminic launches Video Ringtones for Valentines Day, as a romantic alternative to the gifts of chocolates, flowers. Video Ringtones is a high quality mobile phone truetone with a short video clip, matching images and tracks with the personality of the person for whom it is intended. Senders can choose from a wide range of offerings, ranging from romantic ballads to hip-hop, available via Buongiorno‚s extensive catalogue of titles."