Wired News’ article about Hyperscore, a new “create your own” ringtone technology and community pumped out by the geniuses over at MIT’s Media Lab couldn’t have come at a better time. I have been toying with the concept of “create your own” ringtones for some time now and am currently working on a project that, hopefully, will take the concept to the next level.

(I promise to review the Hyperscore hype a little further down)

Last year’s total ringtone market (realtones and polyphonic) made $4.9 billion dollars in profit. And while ringtones are still only a trickle of the recording industries 12 billion dollar surplus, ringtones pulled in $600 million, 20% ahead of estimates and more than double the 2004 take.

The number of Americans downloading ring-tones is increasing according to an Ipsos poll which puts the amount of mobile phone owners who have actually downloaded ring-tones to their phone at 23%. That translates to approximately 30 million Americans, a drastic increase from the 5% of a year ago. And you cant talk about anything mobile without pointing out that the highest rate of ring-tone downloads occur amongst the American youth market.

With the rate of ringtone downloading increasing and with almost all ringtones set to become “real music” by 2010, mobile music is estimated to reach $11.3 billion, with nearly $6.8 billion worth of realtones by that date.

But why should the industry giants have all the fun? How many times have we heard a certain sound or bit of music that your or a friend just wrote and thought…”damn, I wish I could turn that into a ringtone.”

The concept of being able to create ones own truly customizable ringtone is political in nature. In fact, it has its origins in viral political activism. A couple of months ago, Cnet News ran a special on the new political implications of ringtones. The possible political implications of ring-tones was also one of the many discussions that developed out of the MobileActive conference that took place last October in Toronto where representatives from the Philippine group Txtpower shared the way they used ring-tones to severely criticize President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. A conversation that took place between Arroyo and the former Commissioner of Elections Virgillo Garcilliano (a.k.a. Garci) before the elections was recorded and converted into a ringtone by TxtPower. The “Hello Garci” ring-tone features music and the voice of Arroyo saying, “Hello? Hello? Hello, Garci?… So, will I lead by more than one million?” Although possession of the audio file was declared illegal under a wire-tapping law, it spread quickly throughout the country, where SMS is a major form of communication, and the ability to share ringtones over SMS is also widely available. While the Filipino story was already a couple of months old when demonstrated at the Toronto conference, it was the first time many of us, especially from North America, were able to play with and see the technology of homemade ringtones first hand. It also afforded us the first opportunity to consider the implications of homemade ringtones for U.S politics. We also spent some time trying to find an easy way to get the ringtones downloaded fom the txtpower website onto our phones.

This ended up being an important consideration. Ring-tone installation in the United States does in fact vary, not only from carrier to carrier but also from phone to phone. As the Cnet article points out, “some phones are not allowed to install ring-tones from anywhere other than their phone carrier’s site, or are not allowed to send files that are designated as ring-tones to other phones.” There are also different types of ring-tone file formats for different types of phones. And these are only commercial ring-tones we are talking about. When it comes to installing custom homemade ring-tones the current network / cellphone infrastructure can be a real barrier.

Problem Area One: Ringtone Creation.

The problem begins with creating the ring-tone in the first place. While its relatively simple to create a 30 second MP3 or WAV ring-tone, not all phones can play those formats or may require additional software to do so. Even my Treo 650 doesn#039t let MP3 ring-tones play by default. Luckily, there are software applications that will help any ring-tone maestro convert his or her MP3 or WAV recording to other standard mobile device formats such as AMR, QCP and WMA. Most of these are for Windows (Mac users can use Sound Grinder) . But even these files won’t play in all phones, especially older phones which may only be able to play MIDI (.MID) like Polyphonic ring-tones. So the only phones to truly take advantage of this are 3rd Generation Phones, which are now only beginning to proliferate the American market.

In the future this may become easier as 3G phones become more standard. This could be further helped as more networks and phone manufacturers conform to the 3GPP (for GSM) and 3GPP2 standards for CDMA phones such as those provided by Verizon. These .3GP files are optimized for Third Generation mobile devices. Quicktime Pro is just one of the more mainstream softwares that allows one to export 3GPP and 3GPP2 files from MP3 or WAV. But for now, an exported .3GP file converted from a self made MP3 file would not play on my Treo 650.

One must also consider that as MP3 phones, such as Motorola’s ROCKR and the newly introduced SLVR, become more common, MP3 tones might just settle into a standard. But that is a long way off. So, for now, if you are going to offer your own ring-tones, its best to make them available as MP3’s, WAV’s and AMR. While these formats won’t play on everyones phone, it should allow a good majority of mobile users to install and use your tones.

Problem Area 2: Installing a self-made ringtone

That is, of course, if they can figure out how to get the ring-tone onto their phone in the first place. This is another barrier to the home-made ring-tone. Most people that have downloaded ring-tones are already used to service providers making it easy. Some companies have specially designed WAP or XHTML-MP websites that can be accessed via ones mobile device. This was my first experience downloading a ring-tone and it was nice in that it allowed me to download the tones directly into my phone via my mobile web browser. Other PC-Web based companies allow you to chose and purchase a ringtone from their website and then send an SMS to your phone with a link that automatically downloads the tone. Other, even more sophisticated companies will send you the ring-tone directly over SMS/MMS, as if it were getting directly beamed to your phone.

The SMS option has been popular in Europe for some time now and is just beginning to take off here in the United States. This is the way the networks like to do things. Being that they control the roads for access, the networks make money on the data-traffic needed to download the tones as well as get a cut for handling the billing. As San-Franscico activist and creator of Riot.tones Evan Henshaw Plath put it “cell phone service providers operate their networks as closed systems exercising complete control over customer access to content… Nothing goes in or out without the carrier taking its cut.”

For the political campaign, non-for profit or individual activist / artists, therefore, distribution of self made ring-tones is burdensome let alone costly and time consuming. But there are some alternatives.

Here are six do-it-yourself solutions.

The first way is the most basic way but also requires a bit of mobile tech-savyness. One can simply download the ring-tone, email it to his or her self, open the email on their mobile device and download the attachment. This of course assumes that the mobile user has an email enabled phone and knows how to use it. And of course data charges do apply.

A second option is to use MMS (Multimedia Messaging System). Thats right, the same 3G enabled technology that allows you to send pictures and video from one cellphone to another also allows you to send sound files, that is, ring-tones. While this is not an option for political marketers in the sense that it would cost a fortune to send multiple MMS messages to those who wanted it, it does lend itself nicely to the concept of individual viral campaigns. I am constantly beaming or texting several home-made ringtones my friends have made to people I meet at parties. And of course, data charges apply.

A third option is for phones that can access a users email account. One could simply email the ringtone to their email account and then open the email on their phone. But this only works if your phone allows email’s with attachments.

A fourth option would be to upload the ring-tone to a website and instruct users with mobile web browsers on their phone to visit the link. One should be able to install a ring-tone this way but mobile browser capabilities do vary. One could also send the link as an SMS message as some phones will allow you to access the link directly from a text-message (that’s a home brew version of the SMS technology being utilized by the commercial industry mentioned above).

A fifth way is by utilizing a phones bluetooth or infrared technologies. If two phones have have both either bluetooth or infrared then they can send files such as ringtones to one another by these means.

Finally, some phones allow a user to connect their mobile device directly to a computer by means of a cable cord or bluetooth for the purposes of file transfer. It may be possible to install a ring-tone that way. I have had some success installing ring-tones on my Treo 650 and Nokia this way.

Between making your political ring-tones “cell-phone compatible” and figuring out ways to allow people to easily install your tones on to their phones, it would seem that the use of home made ring-tones, wether for political discourse or personal pleasure, has some pretty hefty barriers to overcome. Barriers which are for the most part created by the networks but is also rooted in the general populations lack of mobile technology ‘know-how.’ In a country where SMS is just beginning to take hold, these options do seem better left to tech-savy individuals such as your teenage son or daughter.

But have no fear, third party solutions are here (well, sort of).

Programs such as Hyperscore and Xingtones (which I will get to later) help make the process of actually producing a ringtone easier (Hyperscore creates a more polyphonic sound while Xingtone can turn any good quality recording into a ringtone).

Hyperscore lets composers assemble music using blocks of melodic or rhythmic riffs, called “motives.” A songwriter assembles a collection of motives, represented as a palate of colors. Then, in the program’s sketch window, the composer literally paints the rhythms across the screen. Moving the brush up or down changes the pitch and user-selected harmonizing levels smooth out the sour notes and chords that emerge in the process. [click here to see the demo]

Windows users can now download the basic model, which limits song lengths to 30 to 60 seconds for free at the hyperscore (h-lounge) where Hyperscore artists can make and share music for free. (Mac and Linux versions are in the works.)

The actual music making part of the program is fun and easy to play with and learn. My problem is with its current claim as a ringtone maker. The problem with Hyperscore is that it only saves files in its own .hsc file (which no program yet knows how to convert) and only converts the file “on the fly,” that is it only converts files to different formats (such as MP3 or Wav) when they are sent to a mobile phone (and soon to the ipod) via the “send to mobile” Hyper Player function at the h-lounge. Currently, the file sent to a phone depends on the phone but usually is some form of MIDI. The service also does not have good time allocation in that lot of the “ringtones” made by users in the lounge are much to long to work on several mobile phones. Hyperscore also has another disadvantage in that it does not support sound meshing (the ability to mesh live recording with its music as an undertone) which can be found in a majority of the most successful political and personal home tones. Another downside is the price. For now, getting a Hyperscore melody sent your phone is free… but it will soon cost you (and anyone you want to send it to there phone) 2 dollars + your network charge for the MMS. The service also, for now, only supports Cingular and Verizon phones. I also tried sending myself some “Hypertones” on 3 different phone models, a Treo 650, a Nokia 6822 and an LG A7110. None of them worked. In all cases I waited a good 90 seconds until my speakers started buzzing and I received an MMS message from hyperspace@comcast.net saying

One or more of the message components have been deleted by MMS adaptation. Either the message was too large or the components were unsuitable for your terminal.

I have no idea if that message came from Cingular or Hyperscore but I sure am glad I didnt pay 2 bucks for it. To be fare though, you don’t actually get charged for the tone until you approve the download on your mobile phone (which I couldn’t get too) and the support section does mention something about a list of supported phones (which cannot be found anywhere on the site). I was told by a staff member who appears on the h-lounge as the fat king “Richard” amongst all his spoils that when it came to mobile devices “the list is little slim - most recent phones on Verizon and Cingular Orange work. For Verizon, you need to have VZWPIX enabled - check out your Verizon account on vzwpix.com.” He also mentioned that they are adding T-Mobile, Sprint, Cingular Blue, Dobson, and the rest of the North American carriers over the next couple of weeks.

The boys and girls over at MIT Labs are smart kids, the technology is new and I am sure they will work out the kinks. “Richard” also assured me that Hyperscore will soon be adding vocals / karoake and that therefore the files being sent to the phones will be more like MP3’s. That may, in the future, solve two of the above problems mentioned above. For now it is not a suitable option to mass produce your artistic talent all over the mobile world. When it comes to building a really suave music editing machine these guys are gold…they do, however, need a crash course in mobile network technologies… which I am sure they are now getting. But it sure is fun to play with and can create really great sound. Music wise it is a great editing tool, but that’s not the topic of this blog.

Companies such as Xingtone aim to make the process of producing your own ring-tones and installing them to your phone as simple as sending an email. The software, available for both Mac and PC, allows users to edit ring-tones from a plethora of sound file types and then produce them into files suitable for mobile device use. The software then allows you to send the ring-tone to your phone using SMS (it uploads the tone and texts you the link). The software is perfect for the individual desiring the ability to custom make ring-tones and send them to his or her phone with ease. However, Xingtone does have some limitations when considering it for political marketing. While Xingtone allows you to choose parts of already established sound-files to convert to mobile friendly sound files (and allows you to cut and paste), it is still incapable of meshing and overlapping sound. This means that if people are looking to, say, place a politicians voice over suitable music, they are still going to have to rely on more semi-profesional sound editing software. Secondly, the company really means it when they say that you should make ringtones from the best possible “original recordings” possible. Music I took from MP3’s sounded noticeably worse then music I took directly from a CD (something the Xingtone software lets you do, which is nice). So, if you are creating your own tone with a music editor, like GarageBand you should be ok. Thirdly, Xingtone does not produce a finished product on your PC. Once your done editing your tone the software immediately sends the file to your phone via SMS. It is possible to send the ring-tone from your phone to your PC using the reverse methodology of a lot of the “do-it-yourself” solutions mentioned above…but that, as we have already discussed, is a hassle and a barrier to distribution. Xingtone does allow its customers to open “mStores” where they can distribute and sell ring-tones in personalized stores, but one has to “contact them” if they wish to do so.

Similar to Xingtone’s mStores, sans the ring-tone editing software, is JivJiv.com. JIvJiv is entirely dedicated to providing their users with a means to sell or widely distribute homemade ring-tones. Unlike Xingtone’s mStores, JivJiv works more like CafePress in that it allows anybody to open their own ring-tone store just by signing up. Once you have your own store all you have to do is upload your ring-tones. For now the only format they accept are MP3s, and then JivJiv takes care of the rest. You can mark up the price as much as you want or even provide the ring-tones for free. The service does however, have its limitations as my boss here at PDF, Micah Sifry, found out when he visited the site. JivJiv does not yet support Verizon. I have also personally experienced trouble receiving the SMS ring-tone on certain phones with certain providers. Both my father and I use Cingular, his Razor received the SMS. My Treo 650 did not. But I have had assurances from their customer support as well as from Billionaires for Bush founder Andrew Boyd (who has worked closely with the company for his Truth is a Virus viral campaign experiment) that they are working out these issues and are willing to work closely with JivJiv users and their concerns. (It’s Boyds ringtones that everyone at parties always asks me for when they hear them… especially “Bored Ringer”)

Riot.tones (mentioned above) is not completed yet but when it is (sometime in the 1st Quarter if 2006) it will offer an open source Web 2.0 approach to personal ring-tone freedom. The web based service, created by Evan Henshaw Plath simplifies the complicated process of editing, converting and transferring MP3 files into file formats supported by cell phones thus allowing activists, not-for-profits and political campaigners / markers the ability to deploy ring-tones into their next political event with ease. Evan is even working on ways to allow “content mixing” in his editing tools which would allow for such effects as sound overlapping and meshes. Riot.Tones also hosts a public directory that allows people to search for ring-tones or download specific ones they were told or seduced to go on to the site and get. There is a lot of hype around awaiting Riot.Tones and what it could mean. Jo Lee, founder of Citizen Speak has a great write up for it on the MobileActive wiki proceedings where she also lays out some interesting possibilities for incorporating ring-tones into political activist activities.

Another site to mention quickly is WAPDIAL. While not necessarily a ring-tone creator, WAPDIAL allows users to record messages for extreme distribution by simply making a phone call to the number provided on the site (for now a 212 NYC number). Dialing into the Asterisk server, one need only follow the directions provided and then speak into the phone when prompted. The recording is then made available online in a variety of sound formats which include MP3, AMR, WML and is even made Podcast friendly. It has some basic editing and sound effect features as well. WAPDIAL also makes it possible to send the recording you just made directly to your phone making WAPDIAL a possible distributor of voice only ring-tones. This lends itself well to the possibility of what I want to call “ring-casts;” the ability to broadcast short political messages as ring-tones on a daily, monthly or whatever schedule. Just think of it, a daily ring-tone from your favorite political thinker or candidate. A powerful tool, especially for candidates of political campaigns.

Then there are also Ringbacks to consider. While not yet ready for customization (or even provided by most networks), Ringbacks allow you to change what the person calling them hears while they wait for you to pick up. So instead of the usual ring you might hear some Bushisms or musings from the characters on the T.V show Family Guy before your friend or colleague picks up the phone… they might be so good that you are mad they picked up the phone and interrupted :-). Verizon is one of the first to start offering the service (but only in select locations). Sprint and Bell have followed suite. The ring you hear on the other end of the phone is completely controlled by the networks so it may take some time for an open ended solution for this to arise. I#039m sure it won#039t take long, however, for the networks to begin allowing people to upload their own ringbacks or make deals with business#039 who find a commercial appeal with the idea . But the power of controlling what people hear when they call you is perhaps more powerful than what you hear when your phone rings because people are forced to hear it if they want to call you (long hours listening to company advertisements while on hold for customer service come to mind).

And don’t forget the story I broke a while back about the Endtones and SMStones.

While the influence of ring-tones may one day go both ways, political and personal ring-tones still have a long ways to go in terms of getting over the early adaptor hump and colonizing the mobile media mainstream. Either way, the politicalization of ring-tones has the capability of being the next big viral thing, the new bumpersticker electronically communicating personal and political discourses while in the very act of communication itself. Political marketers are already eyeing the mobile medium as a means to attract youth activity. It only makes sense to make ringtones part of the strategy. In the wiki generation where anyone can edit, ring-tones are the next thing to be set free. Mobile technology is getting a new ring to it… and that ring is all yours!

UPDATE: A relevant article written about latter on yet another uber do it yourself mobile content application called MyNuMo, here.

UPDATE2: If you have a Windows Mobile Phone check out this article for ways to record a ringtone right on your phone.

Technorati Tags: 3g, 3gpp, amr, cell phones, cingular, endtones, harmony line, hello garci, hyperscore, jivjiv, mms, mobileactive, mp3, ringbacks, ringtones, riot tones, riot.tones, slvr, sms tones, sound grinder, txtpower, wapdial, Wired News, xingtone

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 1st, 2006 at 7:49 am and is filed under Entertainment, Ringtones/Wallpaper, Music, How2, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.