Ringtones, wallpapers, logos and mobile games
Ringtone makers
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 (e.g., USB cable), 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 providers allow users to create their own music tones, either with a "melody composer" or a sample/loop arranger (such as the MusicDJ 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.
In 2005 "SmashTheTones" (now "Mobile17"), became the first third-party solution to allow ring tone creation online without requiring downloadable software or a digital audio editor. Later, Apple's iPhone allows users to create a ringtone from any song purchased for the phone's iTunes library.
Websites like Mobilephoria, Phone Sherpa, and Dopetone let users make ring tones from the digital music they already own; they upload directly to their mobile phone with no limit on the number of songs uploaded. They feature music editors that lets the user pick the part of the song they wish to set as a ring tone. Such services automatically detect the phone settings to ensure the best file type and format.
Mobile Content
Mobile content is any type of media which is viewed or used on mobile phones, like ringtones, graphics, discount offers, games, and movies. As mobile phone use has grown since the mid 1990s, the significance of the devices in everyday life has grown accordingly. Owners of mobile phones can now use their devices to make calendar appointments, send and receive text messages (SMS), listen to music, watch videos, shoot videos, redeem coupons for purchases, view office documents, and so forth. The use of mobile content has grown accordingly.
Modern mobile phones can take photographs with a few million pixels. The Nokia N93 can create videos of comparable resolution to a DVD, storing up to 90 minutes on the phone memory.
Mobile content can also refer to text or multimedia hosted on websites, which may either be standard internet pages, or else specific mobile pages.
A mobile wallpaper is a computer wallpaper sized to fit a mobile device such as a mobile phone, personal digital assistant or digital audio player. Screens range in size from 128x128 to 640x360 (for the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic) and the height is often greater than or equal to the width. Wallpapers can be expensive if purchased from the phone service provider, with Virgin Mobile Canada charging CAD $2.50 per wallpaper, but wallpapers can be downloaded from a computer through a data cable (using software such as BitPim if necessary) at no cost.
Mobile Music
Mobile music is any audio file that is played on a mobile phone. Mobile music is normally formatted as an AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) file or an MP3, and comes in several different formats. Monophonic ringtones were the earliest form of ringtone, and played one tone at a time. This was improved upon with polyphonic ringtones, which played several tones at the same time so a more convincing melody could be created. The next step was to play clips of actual songs, which were dubbed Realtones. These are preferred by record labels as this evolution of the ringtone has allowed them to gain a cut of lucurative ringtone market. In short Realtones generate royalties for record labels (the master recording owners) as well as publishers (the writers), however, when Monophonic or Polyphonic ringtones are sold only publishing or "mechanical" royalties are incurred as no master recording has been exploited. Some companies promote covertones, which are ringtones that are recorded by cover bands to sound like a famous song. Recently Ringback tones have become available, which are played to the person calling the owner of the ringback tone. Voicetones are ringtones that play someone talking or shouting rather than music, and there are various of ringtones of natural and everyday sounds. Realtones are the most popular form of ringtones. As an example, they captures 76.4% of the US ringtone market in the second quarter of 2006, followed by monophonic and polyphonic ringtones at 12% and ringback tones and 11.5% - but monophonic and polyphonic ringtones are falling in popularity while ringback tones are growing. This trend is common around the globe. A recent innovation is the singtone, whereby "the user's voice is recorded singing to a popular music track and then "tuned-up" automatically to sound good. This can then be downloaded as a ringtone or sent to another user's mobile phone" said the director of Synchro Arts, the developers.
As well as mobile music there are full track downloads, which are an entire song encoded to play on a mobile phone. These can be purchased and bought over the mobile network, but data charges can make this prohibitive. The other way to get a song onto a mobile phone is by "side loading" it, which normally involves downloading the song onto a computer and then transferring it to the mobile phone via Bluetooth, infra-red or cable connections. It is possible to use a full track as a ringtone.
Mobile music is becoming an integral part of the music industry as a whole. In 2005 the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) said it expects mobile music to generate more revenues that online music before the end of that year. In the first half of 2005 the digital music market grew enough to offset the fall in the traditional music market - without including the sale of ringtones, which still makes up the majority of mobile music sales around the globe.