The music industry has realised that with the advent of mobile phone ringtones imitating records their sales have increased. Last year a large percentage of major record company income was from people paying to download cell phone ringtones onto their mobile phones.
As well as the income from cell phone downloads the record companies enjoy the promotional advertising they get from their artists song playing whenever someone gets a call on their cell. With full songs including vocals available to use for ringtones everyone in the room will hear the record companies songs and could be inspired to purchase the record or download their own ringtones.
So go ahead and download your favourite artists song, ericsson ringtones or nokia phone ringtones today.

Many music podcasts are available online, distributed
by podcasters who want to share their collection with
the world. Some of these are distributed by independent
musicians, groups or individuals who enjoy creating
and sharing their music but have a small fanbase. For
them, a podcast means closer contact with their
listeners, and the blog that usually accompanies a
podcast often allows for the comments and opinions of
the listeners to be shared with the musicians. The
listeners often appreciate this close contact, and some
become resentful when their favorite groups gain
widespread popularity. Musicians may find that the
music podcast they share is a way to build a following
and gain an audience that is loyal to them. Since many
of the musicians who podcast do so as independent
artists who lack the sound the music industry is looking
for or simply haven’t been noticed yet, a music podcast
may build a following that attracts attention to them and
gives them an entry point into the music industry.

For others, a music podcast may be the chance to
become a dj, and the episodes they share will contain
mixes of different songs, highlighting obscure yet
accomplished artists and taking their listeners on a tour
every episode. These amateurs podcast merely because
they enjoy the activity, as most independent podcasters
do. Yet another type of music podcast, however,
involves the online radio station. While some radio
stations have taken the leap to the internet by offering
streaming connections to their current playlist, others
have accepted the podcast as a way of sharing their
music. Such a style is very similar to the amateur dj, but
brings a level of professionalism that is not found with
the amateur podcasters.

A music podcast may also be a way to sample works by
more well known artists before purchasing. Some
musicians and groups will podcast their new music, or
portions of the new pieces, in order to peak interest in
the songs before release. Fans get to listen to the music
and find out what they might like before purchasing the
whole album. A possibility, however, is that music
podcasts become subscription based, and musicians
begin charging for access to the feed. The online sale of
music has proved its popularity, with Apple’s iTunes
reaching its one billionth paid download recently. A
music group could conceivably offer a feed to its fans
that they could pay for, and regularily update it with
new songs that would be downloaded directly to the
fan’s computers Although this distribution model is not
yet in place, it seems to fit with the over all trend.
Already, some nonmusic groups have agreed to podcast
their files, on the condition that a paid subscription is
bought.

LaFraise.com is a design community who produce shirts. It started in 2004 as an experiment by the Parisien Patrice Cassard who set up a system to upload designs, present them as shirts and let users vote the best styles. He then started to produce and sell the most popular shirts, in a limited number, paying royalties to the original designer. Now, the site has grown ever more popular into a European shirt design community (and has recently been acquired by Spreadshirt).

Lafraise offers an affiliate program for people who promote the shirts. Since I do not only like most of the designs but also the whole community approach of the idea, I decided to put a flashcode into my site (in the sidebar to the right) which shows the recent designs. If you decide to buy a shirt after clicking the banner, I will get 10% of the purchased sum which I can spend on shirts.

It’s a nice idea and just an experiment and since I like the shirts anyway and assume that my visitors will too, I figured why not try it out. What do you think? Are you being annoyed by the animated banner? Do you think it is a smart idea? Or is lafraise ripping me off with poor gratification?

When telling marketing people about my blog and how many visitors come by here daily (around 200 which is a nice number but still loooooooong tail, no?) they tend to ask me: “Why don’t you put ads on your site?”. Hm. Dunno. Too much stress to administrate? Not worth the effort? Besides: I know, would I put ads here, I’d put much more work in getting more people on the site which could change: What I write about and how I do it. On the other hand, I am vain enough wanting many people to come here anyway, independent from ads..

[PLACE YOUR AD HERE (in case it’s as pretty as the site)]

Actually, Stylewalker.net would be a mag where, I guess, advertising wouldn’t surprise visitors. It’s music, it’s style, it’s interesting web stuff, it’s Berlin – it’s not the ohsoindependent opinion driven private newsroom or diary. I am the last to say advertising is bad, but in the context of a site who has a strong message to tell about how the world should be, ads just don’t seem to be appropriate.

Here, they would under one condition. They had to be stylish. Banners must look nice, I would not like stupid text links or blinky animated gifs. I want cool ideas, good photos, interesting products. As long as these premises are not complied, I am afraid, I can’t put ads here.

But if you are somebody who is looking for exactly that match (Me: A cool site about cool stuff, You: selling stylish ads for interesting products), please write and give me your clients’ money!

Papermint ScreenshotThe description could be even more specific: Papermint is in fact Vienna’s alternative to Second Life. The “3D virtual realities design company” Avaloop is creating a virtual Vienna, comicstyle; funny enough, Papermint will be 2D and has a very special look and feel.

Avatars look like little superheroes, very cute and indvidual. Right now, they are betatesting Papermint, I am curious how it will look like in the end. Unlike SL they want to concentrate on the communicative aspects of such worlds and not render reality. It is meant to be simple and easy to start. It did cost about 300 000€ devoloping, which shall be refinanced by user fees, in-game items and in-game advertising.

Read more (in German) at Futurezone (ORF) and Der Standard

Update: Here’s a (German) tv documentary:

(Disclaimer: I don’t think Avaloop ever WANTED to create something like Second Life but it is much easier to explain mentioning this successful -at least in terms of media coverage- multiplayer online reality monster..)

Nachdem ich einigen Leuten in letzter Zeit das tolle, kostenlose Content Management System Jimdo empfohlen haben, will ich auch diese bescheidene Plattform nutzen, um über dieses wertvolle Tool zu berichten. Jimdo bietet einen ganzen Katalog von Funktionen, Layouts und Einstellungen um ratz-fatz eine Webseite zu erstellen. Navigation, Header, Gästebuch, Bildergalerie mit Slideshow inklusive Upload – ein schönes Bouquet an Seitentypen, mit dem sich schnell eine umfangreiche Seite bauen lässt. Auch RSS-Feeds, Flickr-Galerien und Videos lassen sich einfach einbauen. Im Textmodus hat man Zugriff auf den Quellcode und kann sogar noch weitere Widgets in die Seiten basteln. Das Ganze ist schnell und selbsterklärend, alles funktioniert kontextsensitiv und sollte sich auch webunaffinen Menschen schnell erschließen. Ein paar Textads werden in die Seiten eingebaut, für 5€ pro Monat kann man auf eine werbefreie Pro-version upgraden, die dazu noch weitere Features, wie z.B. mehr Speicher, beinhaltet.

Als ich letztes Wochenende auf einer Mitarbeiterkonferenz vorschlug, die Ergebnisse doch als Website zu veröffentlichen, waren die Reaktionen zunächst zweifelnd bis ablehnend (”viel zu aufwendig”) und das Erstaunen groß, als am Ende ein richtiges Onlinemagazin “echt im Netz” stand. Die Macher kommen aus Hamburg und treten sehr sympathisch auf, ich wünsche ihnen alles Gute!

Two guys that are not only very respected by me but also by a whole bunch of also very respectable internet people organize an event in Berlin to talk about “living on the net”. Johnny Haeusler (Spreeblick) and Markus Beckedahl (newthinking, netzpolitik) gather many wise und witty heads to talk about culture on the net, the power it can give to people, about blogging, communities, citizen journalism, how to join small pieces, liberate yourself and have a lot of fun doing so. Read about the conference on re-publica.de.

I always liked the edgy and provocative advertising ideas of Diesel (The current slogan e.g. is “Ready for global warming” -sic ).

This one’s not bad either, here’s the story: Two girls who want to be supermodels hijacked the diesel page, kidnapped a Diesel sales guy, stole the underwear collection and are now blackmailing Diesel to make them the two protagonist models of their next campaign. They also want to be Diesel renamed to “Heidies”..

Now, they communicate with their fans via the site, e.g. let them vote what should happen with the kidnapped guy. Despite the fact that he gets his legs waxed, his situation is not too uncomfortable really..

Wow, only a few posts and already there’s a war around my writing on the Berlinaleblog (Watch more pictures and read the whole story about how I sneaked into the big gala night).

This campaign is maybe the best blog / brand / personality campaign so far in Germany: Schlämmerblog, branded entertainment.

German bloggers are tough on the recently issued German Vanity Fair and critizise the big gap between pretension and reality, some even rip it apart visually.

Check out Agnes Obel on Myspace – beautiful dreamy and elegant music from Kopenhagen.