Ringtone Producer

You don’t have to be a US citizen to participate in the upcoming American election. All you need is a mobile phone. (And it doesn’t even have to be an iPhone!) Thanks to www.voeveo.com, an online marketplace for mobile content ‘where independent creators of ringtones, wallpaper, music, games and videos sell directly to buyers’, and the launch of their VOTE 08 campaign, cellphone users can now make their allegiance to either candidate heard.

According to voeveo’s community director, Annabel Youens, “mobile phones are the new political bumper stickers.”

“Every view and purchase of (Republican candidate John) McCain and (Democratic candidate Barack) Obama spoof ringtones and wallpapers will give a global view of the US elections.”

She means that quite literally. Results showing which politician’s ‘tone’ has been downloaded/viewed the most are displayed in real time with a live vote count at voeveo.com.

“As numbers grow, we’ll get a feel for phone brand preferences too. Perhaps Sony Ericsson owners will identify more with Obama, or maybe McCain has the Nokia voters wrapped up.”

Well, whatever the gadget of their choice, on the last day of July 2008, voeveo voters preferred McCain. He had 254 of the voeveo users’ votes, with Obama hot on his heels with 236 of voeveo votes.

The US Presidential candidates aren’t the only politicians who have become the subjects of ringtones.

At the beginning of July, the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa ordered a cellphone ringtone television advertisement depicting Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe as a caged gorilla off the air, claiming that it portrayed Bob in an “offensive and undignified manner”.
The advert shows Mugabe’s face superimposed on a gorilla’s body.

He sits in a cage at the “Zim Zoo” wearing pink sunglasses and holding a sign that says “Keep me in”.
Then a woman is heard screaming: “Hey wena, hey wena [hey you], answer!” Mugabe then sings: “Hey robber Mugabe, you rob-a my country, you rob-a the money, you rob-a the people,” with engorged eyes.
During the hearing, Peach Mobile, the creator of the ringtone, argued that it had a constitutional right to mock Mugabe because he is a despot.

If that had been put to a user vote, we suspect that many people would have sided with Peach Mobile!

Now, if only the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa would ban the incessantly screened, highly annoying television ads hawking the ridiculous ringtones of babies ‘singing’ various top 40 hits. THEN they would, in our opinion, really be doing  their job!

For the creative among you who would rather create your own, unique ringtones, you could always attend RMIT in Melbourne, Australia. Students taking the Bachelour of Arts (Music Industry) degree over there have to create their own, downloadable ringtones as part of their course.

But if you don’t have the time, money or inclination to study in Australia, but you ARE lucky enough to own a much-hyped Apple iPhone, we have found a step-by-step primer on how you could create ringtones for the iPhone 3G by using your PC. The guide, created by a Texan blogger, even contains pictures illustrating the steps, thereby insuring that you don’t have to be an IT professional or an über geek to be able to do it!  http://www.wetwired.org/2008/07/20/creating-ringtones-for-the-iphone-3g-for-pc/ (In a previous entry, the blogger did the same tutorial for Mac users.)

If you DO dabble in the world of amateur ringtone composing, send us comment with a link back to your creation. We’d love to hear from you and your ringtones!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Ringtone Trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.