MP3's and Ringtones!

When Morgan O’Brien founded what would one day become Nextel, there was no such thing as the ringtone. Now, Nextel ringtones and their competition have risen to iconic status. You can’t leave home without hearing the cheery, vibrant tones of a ringtone, Nextel ringtones included. In fact, it is estimated that millions of people all over the world are listening to their favorite music right from their cell phones.

Nextel ringtones come in many styles and formats, each compatible with a different style of phone. The best way to find your own Nextel ringtones is to check your phone. Those Nextel ringtones available for download to your phone will show up in the ringtone catalog in your phone. In addition, you can go online and see the available Nextel ringtones for yourself. You will notice that each song is labeled with one or more tags. This tells you what kind of ringtone you have found. Monophonic Nextel ringtones are melodic tones that can only play one note at a time. With these kinds of ringtones, you only need to have text messaging. On the other hand, there are many other types of Nextel ringtones that require more than just messaging services. Polyphonic Nextel ringtones are composed of keyboard tones, but can better capture the true melody of a song than those tones that are mono-toned. In addition, with Polyphonic ringtones, you can discern different instruments that, put together, sound more like the actual song than just the melody.

Aside from multi-toned Nextel ringtones, you may decide to pick a snip of the actual song, or a voice to go in your phone. Either way, you are getting the real deal. While much of the time these Nextel ringtones cost more than their keyboard-based counterparts (which are sometimes offered for free), Music and Voice Nextel ringtones can make up for the cost with emotional impact.

Not all Nextel ringtones can be downloaded to all Nextel phones. To see if your phone is compatible with Nextel ringtones, visit the Digital Lounge on Nextel’s home page. Follow the link and click on the picture of the phone that represents your model number. Only those Nextel ringtones that are compatible with your phone will appear for download. Once you have had a chance to browse the Digital Lounge, and have found Nextel ringtones that run the gamut from hip hop to country to rock and roll and beyond, you may think you’re ready to purchase Nextel ringtones. But there are many more things to see at the Digital lounge, including screen savers, business solutions and games.

Once you’re ready to check out from the Digital lounge, think about saving your billing information in Nextel Wallet, a management program that will keep your credit card information in a secure location until the next time you want to order Nextel ringtones. Not only that, but by subscribing to receive a monthly invoice, you can have all future Nextel ringtones purchases (as well as screensaver buys and other Nextel products) billed directly to your Nextel wallet. You can even manage your purchases online.

Purchasing Nextel ringtones should be fun, not a chore. Nextel makes purchasing and downloading Nextel ringtones easier, with the Nextel wallet and the flexibility to order your ringtones online or directly from your phone. But be certain that you know your ringtone limit. Your phone can hold only so many Nextel ringtones, and once deleted, you cannot recapture the ringtones you discarded.

The YouTube Conflict

YouTube, like many other online phenomena, has come a long way since its inception. The most notable comparison to be made is probably between YouTube and the file-sharing program Napster, designed to allow Internet users to download free music.

When YouTube was created, it was a way for users to upload personal videos as well as provide clips of television shows and movies for sharing. Soon, it became possible to download clips directly from YouTube and convert them into more widely used media formats like WMV and AVI.

As YouTube became more and more popular, however, it faced the same problems the now-neutered Napster program did. More and more users frequented the site, uploading more and more personal and copyrighted clips alike. YouTube profoundly changed television habits: if one missed a new episode of a program, it wasn’t necessary to wait until mid-season for reruns. Instead, one could click onto YouTube and run a search for the missed episode.

But media corporations understandably had a problem with this. Many of them were quick to yank all their copyrighted material from the website under penalty of fines and lawsuits. YouTube administrators also deleted or suspending offending user accounts, the most publicized recent case of which was against celebrity reporter Perez Hilton, who was outraged at this treatment after sending so many readers to YouTube, and who has since refused to post any additional clips on the website.

The artist formerly known as Prince also jumped on the YouTube Copyright bandwagon just as bands like Metallica were quick to jump on the Anti-Music Sharing bandwagon. According to reports, Prince searched YouTube for any clip containing his music and demanded that the clip be removed to prevent copyright infringement.

Media giant Viacomm, parent corporation of Comedy Central, has also become increasingly aggressive in removing episodes of such popular shows like South Park, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report from YouTube, choosing to host a limited selection of these clips on the Comedy Central home page instead.

While this is perfectly just, it also dampens the YouTube experience. Much as was the case with Napster, YouTube’s informal mission statement has been altered. No longer can it freely host any and all video clips uploaded by users (with the exception of pornography, etc); it must offer its services within legal limits. This is why other smaller, less well known sites such as Hulu.com, among a plethora of others, are rising in popularity. Users can upload whatever material they want, within the rules of decency, to these lesser known sites and not fear copyright red-flagging simply because not enough people know about these sites to make them thoroughly commercial.

This seems to be the pattern of such Internet-based phenomena: once a given medium like YouTube or Napster, among countless other examples, becomes too popular, too commercial, and too widely used, the freedoms of such sites are limited and users flock to other smaller sites and the cycle perpetuates itself.