Vringo [vring-oh] noun 1. A next-gen ringtone with video and social functionality 2. A mind-blowing way to show off your phone 3. A company dedicated to reinventing the phone call
You would think that as a video ringtone service we would be the ones to discover or even create the worst ringtone ever. Unfortunately for you, that dubious honor now belongs to insurance provider, Geico, of all companies.
To begin terrorizing yourself and those around you with this masterpiece of a ringtone (and marketing to be honest – people in our office have seriously been whistling this thing since it came blaring over my speakers a few minutes ago) just head on over to http://www.vringo.com/studio , search for “Geico ringtone” and send it to your phone.
Norway can now count Vringo as one of its national treasures along side fjords and Vikings. Telenor Norway, one of Norway’s leading telecoms, is hosting our service on their WAP portal at http://wap.telenor.no/programmer/apps/. Sure, it doesn’t hold a candle to Harald Fairhair’s unification of Norway at the Battle of Hafrsfjord, but it’s a great beginning.
For something more contemporary, why don’t you make this your ringtone? As usual just head on over to http://vringo.com/studio and cut and edit your favorite part.
We doubt you missed it, but it’s Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day. Birthed into existence by an Indiana radio station nine years ago, this last Monday of January celebrates what is most certainly the most important of artificial “Appreciation” days (If you just have to read more, take a look at this article in the Christian Science Monitor).
In case you don’t have a piece of this addictive material handy to relieve Monday’s stress, we thought we’d at least help you alleviate your frustrations aurally with some bubble wrap ringtones. As usual, just go to www.vringo.com/studio, edit your chosen video and start popping the pain away one call at a time. (We’d go with the first video if you’re a purist, but the two after the jump aren’t bad either.)
We try not to take ringtones too seriously here at Vringo, at least until we read this. Apparently, soldiers in Afghanistan can actually separate moderate Afghans from Taliban supporters just by listening to their ringtones. According to the Financial Times, “Ringtones featuring Islamic religious hymns have become a distinctive hallmark of the Taliban and other hardliners averse to music they consider unIslamic.” Good thing the fine people of New York are only armed with awkward stares when my ringtone goes off.
By the way, you too can have this beautiful ringtone on your phone. Just go to http://www.vringo.com/studio
If there’s one thing that only children do poorly but the web does really well, it’s sharing. Nestled near the end of practically every article or video you run across is a simple Facebook or Twitter button just begging you to replicate content in a different location. While these buttons work like a charm at informing close friends and annoying distant acquaintances with your latest nugget of workplace procrastination, they aren’t very helpful when it comes to spreading a piece of content off the desktop screen and onto the mobile screen.
Well, we’ve got an app for that. OK, its really a widget, but close enough. The Vringo Widget at its most basic does what your everyday Facebook and Twitter button can’t; it seamlessly sends any video to which it is attached to your cellphone into one easily accessible and consolidated space.
A red-head raver, an iPhone synthesizer and a stop motion concerto were all backdrops to the top three entries in Symbian Guru’s contest to remix Nokia’s iconic ringtone. In the end, WhatLiesBeyondMatt’s concerto came out on top and snags him a brand new N-97 (Catch the two runners-up at the bottom of the post). It goes without saying that all the entries were extremely original and creative. Every entry really showed that you can do something very interesting when you treat a ringtone as a medium all its own.
We’re always looking for creative individuals to create content for Vringo. So if you’ve got some spare time and want to shake up ringtones a bit, drop our content manager, Ross, an email at ross.neumann@vringo.com
We know Tiger Woods’ voicemail has proliferated on just about every medium it can find, but we thought we would help this little message reach one more – video ringtones. Since Tiger understandably didn’t think you would be using his rather suggestive voiemail to alert you to a call, we’ve relied on the folks at HalfDayToday to augment his voice with a smooth R&B beat. Trust us, once you’ve gone to our Featured category and set ”Take Your Name Off Your Phone” as your Vringo, you’ll never need another ringtone again. If you don’t have Vringo yet, maybe you should get it… http://www.vringo.com . There’s never been a better reason.
Clever headline aside, we at Vringo are excited to announce that we’ve launched with Maxis Berhad, one of the world’s leading mobile operators based in Malaysia.
We’re Malaysia’s first fully hosted video ringtone service, which brings us to more than 11 million potential customers.
Yeah, we’re pretty excited about it, too.
Between this partnership, our recent addition to the Android Market, our launches with world-class carriers in Turkey and Armenia, as well as our upcoming — oh, better hold back on that one — you could say we’re getting closer to our stated goal of world domination… through video ringtones, of course.
The deadline for Symbian Guru and Vringo’s “Make a Video Nokia Tune, Win an N97 Mini” Contest is nearly upon us, but we’ve already seen a handful of pretty interesting submissions. Here’s a few; head on over to Symbian Guru to check out the rest!
If you head on over to Vringo Studio, you can make any of these your Vringo now by searching for “Nokia Tune.” Results of the contest coming next week…
