By Sue Marek
mSpot's popular customizable ringtone application Make-UR-Tones will now be available to BREW operators. The application has been available as a Java app on AT&T's network but will now have a broader reach thanks to its availability via BREW.
The application has access to more than 250,000 different music tracks, a portfolio that mSpot co-founder and CEO Daren Tsui said may be the largest master tone catalog available today. Tsui said that typically most carriers have about 25,000 to 30,000 master tones available in their portfolio because they first have to get the rights to use the tone from the label and then a publisher has to work on the master tone and select the ringtone clip. "It's a two-step process," Tsui said. "That's why the master tones that most consumers can buy are the latest and the greatest. You don't see the long tail."
Make-UR-Tone meanwhile has access to any music that has been cleared through its publishers. "We leave it up to the users to edit it as they want," Tsui said. The application lets consumers search for the song, listen to it and edit the ringtone. Once they edit the clip that they want as a ringtone, they can then preview it before they commit to purchasing it. Once they decide to buy it, the Make-UR-Tone server takes the information and cuts another version of the ringtone with the exact edits but at a higher bit rate. "This gives the user the best quality," Tsui said. "You get the entire track to edit it like you want it and then we send you the high-fidelity version."
Currently AT&T offers the Make-UR-Tone application for a monthly subscription fee of $6.99 for three master tones. However, Tsui said that the company is working with carriers to also offer it a la carte for $2.99 per tone.