San Francisco, CA – DJ Nitrogen, creator of the Sharetones™ family of ringtone apps, announced today that it has been granted Patent No. 7,610,044 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. “This is our core process that lets users legally share ringtones between their mobile devices and enables providers to unlock users’ music with pre-edited ringtones,” said DJ Nitrogen CEO Chris Sindoni. “We believe this is the future of the ringtone business.”

The patent covers the method of sharing ringtone content independent of the audio content used to generate the ringtone. DJ Nitrogen refers to this as the recipe-sharing model. The “ringtone recipe” is the meta-data that extracts the ringtone from the full audio track, including start and end points, fade in/out and effects. DJ Nitrogen matches music on a user’s phone or media device with the ringtone recipes created by other users. These recipes are stored in the DJ Nitrogen cloud. Each recipe is made available to everyone in the DJ Nitrogen ecosystem who owns the source audio. This gives users instant access to a huge and growing selection of ringtones for music they love. The platform is fully compliant with copyright laws because users share only the recipe; they never share the source audio content. In the same manner that users share these recipes, providers can deliver professionally pre-edited recipes to their subscribers using the patented DJ Nitrogen process.

DJ Nitrogen leverages the explosive growth in smart-phones and the trend in full track music downloads to these mobile devices. The ringtone recipes are created and shared by users of the Sharetones ringtone editing applications, including Sharetones for the iPhone. The company’s new smart-phone apps, starting with Sharetones for Android, complete the ecosystem loop. They give music fans access to a huge catalog of ringtones, including over 95,000 recipes created by Sharetones users. The recipe matching happens in the background, so smart-phone users just preview and select their ringtones. The patent granted today also covers DJ Nitrogen’s process for checking if the source audio sought by the shared recipe is not available on the local device and automatically obtaining a licensed copy of that audio. This enables ringtones to be the point of music discovery, encouraging full track purchases from partner music retailers.

About DJ Nitrogen:
San Francisco based DJ Nitrogen is changing the way consumers and media providers engage with digital media by empowering an ecosystem that unleashes user creativity,  protects copyright holders and delivers added revenue to media companies and carriers. The company has several patents (issued and pending) for the technology that powers its platform. CEO Sindoni and the development team are veterans of numerous large consumer Internet brands and start-ups. Visit www.djnitrogen.com for more information and to download a free Sharetones product.

Contact:

Bill Hensley - VP Marketing
DJ Nitrogen
bill.hensley @ djnitrogen.com
415-869-8859 x 716

The latest Sharetones for Android phones released to the Android Marketplace September 29th. Sharetones matches the songs on Android users’ phones with ringtone “recipes” for those same songs, made by users of the Sharetones desktop apps. This gives Android users instant access to ringtones.

Since these recipes are user-edited, the new ratings feature allows the Android users to rate them up or down, thus bubbling the best edits to the top.

The new Sharetones also features enhanced speed and adds a waveform graphic that shows the location of the ringtone within the song.

Sharetones is a new breed of ringtone solution, leveraging the trends in whole-song downloads and providing a social ecosystem for makers and consumers of music ringtones.

Sharetones is compatible with all Android phones, including the G1 and MyTouch. As the name implies, Sharetones are “ringtones you share.” It doesn’t matter what type of phone you have, and since what is really being shared is the metadata that defines each ringtone recipe, Sharetones is a truly legal method of sharing ringtones.

More information is available at www.djnitrogen.com.

In yesterday’s press event, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the iTunes store will now sell pre-cut ringtones for $1.29. This is a big improvement on the old Apple model of paying for the song twice - the second time for the privilege of editing your own ringtone. Of course the 25,000+ users of Sharetones by DJ Nitrogen have found an easier and less expensive way to get custom ringtones from their music. With over 80,000 ringtone recipes in the Sharetones library, users have plenty of free choices without the need to edit their own.

Download a free copy at djnitrogen.com

Yes, Apple has realized that:

1. There is still plenty of life left in the ringtone category.

2. The old Apple model (buy it twice) wasn’t working.

3. Services like Sharetones are a much better deal for anyone wanting iPhone ringtones.

DJ Nitrogen recently released the latest upgrade to its Sharetones ringtone app for Android, and the new Sharetones 1.1 app has already outpaced the original Beta launch.

The latest Sharetones is significantly faster when checking a user’s song library against the DJ Nitrogen ringtone recipe database, particularly important for users with large music collections on their phones. Sharetones 1.1 also makes it easier to assign ringtones directly to contacts from within the app.

Android users can download Sharetones for freee at the Android Marketplace.

By the way, it looks great on the new myTouch!

More information is at djnitrogen.com.

cNet took a look at the new Sharetones for Android and liked what they saw. Check out their video review. Sharetones for Android lets Android users share unlimited ringtones directly from their handsets. Get it at the Android Market or visit djnitrogen.com for more information.

Information at djnitrogen.com/sharetones-android.html

San Francisco, CA – DJ Nitrogen, creator of the Sharetones ringtone sharing platform, announces the new Sharetones App for Android. Sharetones lets users to turn songs on their Android phones into ringtones, alarms and notifications. Sharetones is the only Android app that lets users get virtually unlimited ringtones direct from their handsets without needing to edit their own waveforms or pay the high prices from carriers or third party sites.

Sharetones matches the music on an Android phone with user-generated “ringtone recipes” stored in the Sharetones cloud - giving the Android user instant access to a huge and growing selection of ringtones. Sharetones handles the matching in the background, so all the user does is preview and select. During the introductory period, Sharetones gives Android users unlimited ringtones for free.

“We are really excited to be launching Sharetones for the Android platform,” says Chris Sindoni, DJ Nitrogen CEO. “So far the feedback has been great. It’s a simple concept really - Sharetones are ringtones you share. We match your music with someone else’s recipe to give you a ringtone, instantly.”

Sharetones for Android is built on the DJ Nitrogen content collaboration platform that lets users legally share their mash-ups and remixes with others who own the same source content. The ringtone “recipes” are created and shared by users of DJ Nitrogen’s Sharetones desktop applications or the new Sharetones add-on for the Songbird Media Player. Each of these applications features full audio editing capabilities, resulting in a huge database of custom ringtones. “Sharetones for Android helps complete the ecosystem loop” says Boris Ratchev, Product VP and leader of the Sharetones for Android development team. “It gives casual music fans access to over 65,000 recipes created by our desktop app users.” Serious DJs can still use the Sharetones Windows or Songbird app to send custom ringtone edits to their Android phones.

About DJ Nitrogen:

San Francisco based DJ Nitrogen is changing the way consumers and media providers engage with digital media by empowering an ecosystem that unleashes user creativity,  protects copyright holders and delivers incremental revenue to media companies. The company has several patents (issued and pending) for the technology that powers its platform, including the “recipe sharing” technology that lets users legally share remixes and mash-ups of copyrighted content. CEO Sindoni and the development team are veterans of numerous large consumer Internet brands and start-ups. Visit www.djnitrogen.com for more information and to download a free Sharetones product.

Contact:

Bill Hensley
VP Marketing
DJ Nitrogen
bill.hensley@djnitrogen.com
San Francisco, CA
415.869.8859 x716

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Now, Songbird users can make and share unlimited ringtones with Sharetones by DJ Nitrogen. Sharetones matches the music in a user’s Songbird music library with “ringtone recipes” made by other users of DJ Nitrogen products giving instant access to a vast and growing database of ringtones. Just a couple clicks sends the ringtone to a user’s mobile phone via sms.

If we don’t already have the ringtone you want, right click on any song in your music library to create your own with our audio editor. Once you create a ringtone its recipe is shared with all Songbird users so anyone with the same song can also enjoy your ringtone.

FREE during beta to all Songbird users. Enjoy!

As you’ve likely read, a Federal jury  found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $1.9 million, That’s $80,000 each for 24 songs.

User’s of DJ Nitrogen’s Sharetones don’t need to worry about the legality of sharing ringtones. That’s because with Sharetones users only share the metadata what we call the “recipe” - for songs they already own. The simple ideas can save you a lot of money.

DJ Nitrogen rocks Mobile Incubation Week

Last week DJ Nitrogen joined several other innovative mobile companies at Microsoft’s Window Mobile Incubation Week. While we didn’t take home the top prize, we received rave reviews on our legal solution to sharing content. Most of you who follow us will think we’re just about ringtones - Sharetones as we call them - but that’s just the start. DJ Nitrogen connects the ecosystem with benefits for users, providers and copyright holders alike.

This video captures CEO Chris Sindoni, VP Product Boris Ratchev and Developer Ilan Caspi during the event discussing the DJ Nitrogen platform, Windows Mobile and the Mobile Incubation Week.

It’s been a very busy few months at DJ Nitrogen - sorry we’ve been rather quite on the blog - but we’re happy to present the newest addition to our lineup of custom ringtone products - Sharetones. What is a Sharetone? It’s a ringtone you share. Share-tone. Hmmm… that was simple enough. But isn’t sharing content illegal? Not with DJ Nitrogen’s patent-pending platform. Sharetones makes it simple (and legal) for users to create, consume and collaborate on custom ringtones from the music they own. We align ringtone “mash-ups” with user “match-ups” - that is: users can only see ringtones for songs already in their collections.The more songs you own, the more ringtone recipes you have access to. Over 50,000 different ringtone recipess (Sharetones) are sharing through the DJ Nitrogen Sharetones platform right now.

To celebrate Sharetones, we’re offering free ringtones. Whether you use an iPhone or any MP3-compatible phone, try Sharetones now and get free ringtones with no further obligation.

Try Sharetones now at: http://www.djnitrogen.com/sharetones.html

Share with a friend.

Interesting story from NPR about the power of ringtones in Tibet.

All Things Considered, February 25, 2009 · Police in Tibet have swept markets in recent months looking for banned music. Chinese state media report that police have arrested several suspects for allegedly downloading to their cell phones music that the government considers “reactionary.”

Woeser, who goes by only one name like many Tibetans, is one of Tibet’s most outspoken authors. Recently, the Beijing-based writer has been blogging about the hidden world of reactionary ringtones, subversive songs and dissident downloads.

(The full story is at the link above.)

This is either good news for music fans - many of whom discover new music by sharing it - or just another tact to punish those fans who share too much. The RIAA will now focus on getting ISPs to threaten choking offenders’ bandwidth or even terminating access for those users sharing music. Since a lot of users would rather give up their right arm before losing broadband access this seems like a strong hammer.

A few interesting views on the subject:

From CrunchGear 12/19/08

From Mashable 12/19/08

From The Wall Street Journal 12/19/08

Clearly there are just not enough music awards shows. But at least this one was reasonably entertaining and rather short. Good review on Yahoo Music.

The iPhone was the top selling handset in the third quarter, followed by the Motorola Razr and Blackberry Curve.

The Razr held the top spot for the previous 12 quarters.

Of course, all are compatible with DJ Nitrogen’s Ringtone Lab.