Updated
Phonezoo is a new Silicon Valley start-up that makes downloading ringtones a fun activity, even for us at VentureBeat who have so far snubbed the trend.
Phonezoo, of Sunnyvale, has been in testing mode until now, but today launched publicly. We’ve tried it. You go through an easy registration process, where you list your phone, so Phonezoo knows how to best transcode ringtones for your particular phone.
Once enter the Phonezoo site, you can explore ringtones that other members have created and submitted to the site. You can see the most recent ringtones or top-rated ones, and rate them yourself. Each ringtone is titled with the name of songs if playz (see partial screenshot below). You find “Clocks” from ColdPlay, for example, and download it.
The great part, it’s free. Other services charge an average of $2.50 per ringtone and limit options to audio prepackaged segments, sold typically by wireless carriers.
But there’s one more step before you can download “Clocks.” Phonezoo puts a green button beside the ringtones ready for download immediately. It puts an orange button next to copyrighted songs, such as “Clocks.” Selecting the Clocks ringtone prompts you to upload the music file from your desktop or other drive — thus ensuring you have rights to it. Once you upload it, Phonezoo automatically scans it and pulls the relevant snippet to match the ringtone you’ve chosen.
It doesn’t stop there. Phonezoo gives you a way to edit the ringtone. It gives you a cool graphic to show which part of the full song you’ve got as your ringtone (see image below). If the “Clocks” ringtone you’ve chosen is defaulted to begins at eight seconds into the song, you move sliders on the graphic to change it so that it starts at the beginning. Moreover, you can change how long the snippet plays, say from ten seconds to 20 seconds.
Phonezoo plans to make money down the line, it says, by inserting advertising that is relevant to the songs you’re looking at — or profiling sponsored content. Phonezoo has a person’s phone data, and so knows where members are located, and thus serve locally relevant concern information, for example. It will let users buy full songs related to the ringtones they’ve selected, and Phonezoo will take a cut in the process — say five cents from an overall price of 45 cents. Phonezoo wants to move into video, chief executive Ram Ramkumar told VentureBeat. It’s also building a way for users to place a widget on MySpace, listing their ringtones, he said.
The company says 69 percent of ringtones are downloaded by women. So the company’s target customer is a 20-year-old college female student, who has more than 100 friends in MySpace and/or Facebook listed in their phones and IM buddy lists.
The U.S. ringtone market is expected to exceed $600 million in sales this year, up from $500 million last year,” according to BMI, a performing rights organization. There’s a plethora of players in the ringtones market, but none that offer a community service for free, Phonezoo’s Ramkumar says.
The company has raised an angel round of $560,000, led by venture capitalist Tim Draper, who invested $300,000 of that. It is now looking to raise $5 million.
Tags: co:phonezoo, people:Kristopher-Tate, people:Ram-Ramkumar, people:Tim-Draper17 Comments
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Startups.in/India said:
Cool! I like free stuff ;-)
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T-Mobile User said:
I spent an hour or two on this website only to figure out (once I made an account) that t-mobile users are out of luck unless they pay an extra $6 dollars a month for the internet! All the other carriers let you get on the internet no matter what. So if you are not a t-mobile customer- Have Fun!!! while the T-Mobile customers are stuck with paying either $6 Dollars a month or $2.50 a song!!!!
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tammy said:
This is great. I can’t believe its free.
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Mr.JerryBanzor said:
Hello,
Very Informative Posts.
I really like what you have going on here. I’ll be back soon -
Rico said:
Textforringtones.com is our latest project which we have dedicated completely to ringtone news, articles and resources. We have great articles addressing some of the same discussions on this blog and links to other interesting ringtone articles on the web. Come check us out and see for yourself!
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tony johnson said:
what the hell why cant i get on to phone zoo
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Daniel said:
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Phonezoo offers free, extensive ringtone download service, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
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Harriet said:
Greetings from Florida! I came across your blog posting after searching for free ringtone and your post on Phonezoo offers free, extensive ringtone download service makes an interesting read. Thanks for sharing. I will research more next Wednesday when I have the day off.
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CHERRYLICIOUS T - I - P said:
Hey what’s up i am becoming a new member to this website so i just wanted to show some love by leaving this comment……..
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lrnbubbles said:
hi this is bubbles..i have been on phonezoo for awhile now..but the last couple wks me and my friends cant get 1 ringtone 2 download…we all have emailed them and no response…it would b nice 2 know what happened 2 this gd site
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NqgUeuon said:
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Jeff said:
It\’s very helpful information. Thanks for it.
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Max said:
Hello! Found your blog on yahoo - thanks for the article but i still don\’t get it.
8 Trackbacks
10:59 pm
Phonezoo « Technically Speaking said:
[...] I couldn’t get in to look at the site, as there was actually a hammer beating a nail animation ie.. - the site was under maintenance. From what I read here, it seems like a nice site. Target is the 20 year old college woman, who has 100 friends on MySpace / Facebook. [...]
6:40 am
VentureBeat Wire » Ringtones company Phonezoo launches with backing from DFJ’s Draper said:
[...] See our story here. VentureBeat Community [...]
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Free ringtones at Roam4free said:
[...] From Venture Beat [...]
11:43 am
Bronte Media » Ringtone Disruptor said:
[...] There is a lot of money in Ringtones. Alot of it by convincing unsuspecting teens to pay $10 a month. But now a company called Phonezoo is aiming to create a free ringtone mixer and creator for people to change their phone ring. For free. Copyright material too, if the person uploads a copy of the song to the server, ostensibly proving they own the music (or have committed the act of stealing elsewhere at the very least). I love it. Matt Marshall has a fantastic review of the company over at VentureBeat. Fascinating stuff. [...]
9:25 am
wireless federation / news » Blog Archive » Ringtone Startup Courts MP3.com-style Legal Battle said:
[...] 6:27 pm The ringtone market has been under pressure for some time, caused mainly by content providers’ greed, but also by the growing number of ways for users to make their own ringtones from digital music files. A Silicon Valley startup called Phonezoo is targeting this market in a somewhat interesting way: users can submit their own ringtones for others to download for free, but if the ringtone is of a copyrighted song, users must upload a digital version of the song to “prove” they own it. Once you do this, Phonezoo apparently takes that upload and extracts the relevant snippet, or lets users edit it before downloading. It’s a cool idea, and it’s great to see free ringtones — however it seems awfully unlikely that the recording industry will agree. Phonezoo’s model sounds pretty similar to that of MP3.com’s My.MP3.com service of several years ago, which gave users access to online copies of music once they’d inserted a copy of a CD in their computer to verify they actually owned it. The service, of course, got shut down by the record labels in 2000, and although many people thought MP3.com had plenty of grounds to appeal, the legal system made it essentially impossible for them to do so. Phonezoo’s raised money from a group of angel investors including well-known VC Tim Draper, and is now looking to raise a few million dollars more — but they’re probably going to need much more than that to battle the record labels. Despite the weakness of the MP3.com decision, it looks like Phonezoo is setting themselves up for an uphill battle, After all, it’s really difficult to see how uploading a ripped or downloaded version of a song actually proves a user legitimately bought it. Still, this doesn’t validate the recording industry’s approach to the ringtone market, which is based, essentially, on ripping people off and using lawsuits to protect the market. Call us crazy, but combining sales of recorded music with ringtones and other types of content so they offer consumers better value is just one idea they could use in an attempt to grow, rather than just try to maintain, their sales. [...]
3:24 pm
Joatmon’s Rants » Blog Archive » Dude - they have the theme from the Jetsons! said:
[...] VentureBeat » Phonezoo offers free, extensive ringtone download service Phonezoo is a new Silicon Valley start-up that makes downloading ringtones a fun activity, even for us at VentureBeat who have so far snubbed the trend. [...]
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Trying to Be like Bill Gates » Systems Can Keep Eye On Home From Desktop PCs Or Cell Phones (Investor’s Business Daily) said:
[...] hmmm… This is a interesting piece of information Investor’s Business Daily - Remote home monitoring is giving new meaning to the phrase “phone home.”. Also you should check this site out ringtone Startup Courts MP3.com-style Legal Battle The ringtone market has been under pressure for some time, caused mainly by content providers’ greed, but also by the growing number of ways for users to make their own ringtones from digital music files. A Silicon Valley startup called Phonezoo is targeting this market in a somewhat interesting way: users can submit their own ringtones for others to download for free, but if the ringtone is of a copyrighted song, users must upload a digital version of the song to “prove” they own it. Once you do this, Phonezoo apparently takes that upload and extracts the relevant snippet, or lets users edit it before downloading. It’s a cool idea, and it’s great to see free ringtones — however it seems awfully unlikely that the recording industry will agree. Phonezoo’s model sounds pretty similar to that of MP3.com’s My.MP3.com service of several years ago, which gave users access to online copies of music once they’d inserted a copy of a CD in their computer to verify they actually owned it. The service, of course, got shut down by the record labels in 2000, and although many people thought MP3.com had plenty of grounds to appeal, the legal system made it essentially impossible for them to do so. Phonezoo’s raised money from a group of angel investors including well-known VC Tim Draper, and is now looking to raise a few million dollars more — but they’re probably going to need much more than that to battle the record labels. Despite the weakness of the MP3.com decision, it looks like Phonezoo is setting themselves up for an uphill battle, After all, it’s really difficult to see how uploading a ripped or downloaded version of a song actually proves a user legitimately bought it. Still, this doesn’t validate the recording industry’s approach to the ringtone market, which is based, essentially, on ripping people off and using lawsuits to protect the market. Call us crazy, but combining sales of recorded music with ringtones and other types of content so they offer consumers better value is just one idea they could use in an attempt to grow, rather than just try to maintain, their sales.Did you know that Legal means legals Investments that may be legally made by fiduciaries and certain institutions, such as savings banks and insurance companies. Also called legal list. This is also interesting information sametime Now Chats With Other Messaging Services (PC World) PC World - IBM announces interoperability with AOL, Google, and Yahoo IMs–but not Microsoft.Did you know that World means the universe. This is also something to look at smith to head CBS Corp. interactive unit (AP) AP - CBS Corp. is tapping Quincy Smith, a veteran technology executive and dealmaker, to head up the media company’s burgeoning interactive operations.Did you know that Head means a distinct topic or category: under the head of recent Spanish history. wow… this is such a great idea [...]
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