Ringback tones – this is the new cellphone customization craze of the 2000’s. If you’re a cellphone user, there is little chance that you haven’t already heard of them. What I’d like to do is give you a couple of ideas about how you can have fun with ringback tones on your cell.
One of the funkiest things that I’ve found for customizing my ringback tone collection is audio clips. These are not just a music clip of a pop hit currently making the rounds on the radio. Audio clips can add a lot of variety and imagination to the dead air time that your callers would hear if you didn’t take advantage of the ringback service.
Probably the best ones that I’ve heard recently are replays of the classic comedy monologues. I know these days that these clips are probably quite foreign to new generations, but adding a clip like “who’s on first” is just a really fun thing, when you know you can make your friends or relatives smile for a few minutes every time they call you.
More typically, music clips will be the sound of choice for the majority of customers using ringback tones. If you spend any time searching the web for cool stuff for your cell phone, you’ve no doubt seen the endless ads for current R&B and pop hits downloadable as ringtones. Although not as prevalent, ringback tone selections pretty much echo the commercially available ringtone collections. The great thing is that the cell phone carriers stay up to date with current music releases, since obviously these are hugely popular.
Outside of the current pop-charts, if you are still more a music person than comedy or audio, there is bound to be an extensive selection you can choose your ringback tones from. Even if your musical taste is eclectic or obscure, the music libraries of cellphone carriers is quite extensive, and is updated regularly to cater to all sorts of different musical tastes.
Setting up and configuring the ringback tones for your cellphone is not a difficult process. You have two options – either use the phone interface and use the number pad to make your selections. Or you can go to the web and browse, listen to, order and configure the schedules you want for your ringback tones to play. Notice that I did say ‘order’ your selections, since there currently isn’t any way to upload your own ringbacks, you are limited to the cell carrier’s selection and price list. Even with that, I am certainly going to continue to use ringback tones on my cell, because the cost is pretty minimal, and I really enjoy the added personality it gives my cellphone. At the very least, it’s a conversation starter!
