Ringtones are the thing... or are they?

Well, it's pretty busy as usual at technokitten towers so just to keep my hand in with what's hot in mobile right now, here's some Friday linkage about ringtones 'n stuff.

Tele2 is running a user-generated ringtone competition in Sweden. Unfortunately, I don't speak Swedish so I can't tell you much about it! Perhaps a Swedish speaking reader could shed some light on this for me?

Cellfish.com introduced its Mobile Threat collection of hardcore punk, metal and indie rock ringtones, videos and image downloads for mobile this week. This means that the next time you ride public transport, you just might get an earful of GWAR, Shadows Fall, Everytime I Die, Chimaira and The Devil Wears Prada – consider this your early warning notice. Cellfish Media has partnered with the Sounds of the Underground summer music tour to bring the hard rocking genre of music fans a collection of mobile entertainment to suit their tastes... I think I'll stick to the theme tune from Fame as my ringtone for now ;)

But it seems that mobile games are the new black when it comes to revenue generation rather than ringtones. That comes as no big surprise to me as you can use mp3 files now for ringtones and it's not *that* difficult to make your own from your existing mp3 files.

So it's no surprise that free mobile content seems to be gaining popularity and some serious traction. Zedge.net now has over 5 million subscribers. I'm not sure how many of these are active, or what they're actually doing, nevertheless, it's impressive.

And since April 2006, I'm reliably informed that Cellufun, has delivered close to 4 million downloads to consumers in 160 countries. Cellufun offers free, ad-supported mobile products, predominantly free games ranging from Sudoku to casino to space battles and racing games. You can join the community by going to http://wap.cellufun.com from your web-enabled mobile phone.

And if you're a mobile addict, gaming or otherwise, you can now play with your phone safely in the bath as DoCoMo has just launched a waterproof mobile phone. Actually, joking apart, this would have been handy at Glastonbury this year, I know a few folks whose phones died after getting wet in the rain or being dropped in a puddle or the mud!

karaoke ringtones

Singtones has just soft-launched their new service which is essentially karaoke ringtones.. you sing your tune down the phone line, they clean up the vocal, add a backing track and send it back to you as a ringtone. I'm a big karaoke fan, but I'm not sure the world is quite ready to hear my dulcet tones every time my phone rings, but I reckon some folks will definitely like it.

The reckon that their service is better than karaoke as it's you who's sounding great in the mix and that they can magically put your voice in tune and in time in just seconds. It's free to record your tune and preview it, you only pay when you confirm the download on to your phone. And in fact, some of the choons are free anyway which is nice. They've got lots of up to date choons to choose from including Ruby by the Kaiser Chiefs and Grace Kelly by Mika as well as classics like Abba's Dancing Queen and Queen's Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Go on, it's Friday afternoon, give it a go! I will be trying it later in the privacy of my own home.

Can't wait for the iphone to come out?

Well you can have the iphone ringtone to keep you amused in the meantime from our friends at C21 ringtones. And even better, it's free which the iphone certainly isn't! Enjoy.

Infospace being sued by EMI for $100m

The music division of EMI is suing Infospace for unpaid royalties on ringtones and selling ringtones on properties they don't have the rights for such as John Lennon's Imagine. EMI claims that Infospace has been obstructive when they asked to audit the books. In return, Infospace claims that EMI's allegations have no substance. This could well be a lawsuit to watch.
via MobileIndustry.biz