San Leandro Times

San Leandro Times What Your Ringtone to Says About You By : Michael Singer : 3/3/07 Wouldn't you love to be the guy who invented the ringtone? You could have patented it and become an instant billionaire. There were nearly a billion phones sold last year around the world and each of them has a default ring setting or two that makes it possible to sound like just like every other cell phone on the planet. That can be really confusing if you are in a crowd and you hear this familiar sound coming from your neighbor's purse or pocket. I once heard what I thought was my cell phone ring while at sitting at Starbucks one day and I nearly spilled my drink trying to rush to answer what I thought was my phone. Don't laugh, I'm sure you'd check your pocket if you thought you heard your phone ring too. So instead, there are ringtones. These little jingles are a way people try to set themselves apart from the crowd. It's all about personalizing your personality. A ringtone can be your identity. They can be sexy or funny. They can be loud and funky. And of course, they can be very annoying and frustrating, especially if it's a song or sound you don't like. The ringtone as we know it started with Nokia, which put out a 13-note rendition of a 19th-century Spanish song "Gran Vals." Nowadays, mobile phones ring in these rich polymorphic tones or recordings of your own voice and snippets of songs. The most popular these days is " Poppin,'" by Chris Brown and Jay Biz, according to Billboard Magazine. Other Top 10 artists include Beyonce Knowles, Justin Timberlake and Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, who can make your mobile phone "Fergalicious." I'm not sure what that means, but it probably sounds pretty cool. I changed my default setting recently and now I have a cell phone that screams out the first few bars of the AC/DC's classic, "Back in Black" if someone calls me. I wonder if that means I am a rebel or just want to be one. One of the most popular ringtones in the world -- certainly at my house -- is Crazy Frog. If you don't know this most annoying thing, consider yourself lucky. The tune is a remix of "Axel F", from that Beverly Hills Cop movie. But the song is sung by a cartoon character frog that has this weird way of trying to imitate the sound of a two-stroke moped engine. Thankfully, there is a different kind of frog that is available as a ringtone these days. It seems that New Mexico's Center for Biological Diversity wants to bring attention to their local endangered species. The organization is offering natural sounds of owls, frogs and other creatures as a ringtone to download. At the end of last month, the center said it received 24,000 requests. Now, there is something to hoot and howl about. If you want to try it yourself: Remember, that ringtones are big business for mobile phone companies. Wireless carriers charge $2.50 on average to download the hottest hits. Not to mention, there are fees involved on your phone bill if you order new ringtones on a regular basis. There are free sites that you can download ringtones from. Keep in mind, however, that the BBC reported that "free ringtones" was the eighth most likely search term to return links to viruses and other nasty computer bugs. If you want to create your own ringtone, try Phone Sherpa or RingtoneSoup. These Web sites let you make your own ringtone from music in either an MP3 or from your CDs. You can edit them and then upload them directly to your cell phone. 2 3.

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