Artists Create New Music Specially for Cell Phones

Today's composers have a new outlet for their creativity, it seems: the mobile phone. In addition to writing songs for discs, radio play and live performances, songwriters are now producing pieces of music designed to do nothing more than sound off when someone calls up.

The reason for the rise in cell phone music is, of course, the money. Ringtones now give record labels, retailers and phone companies a mouth-dropping $2 billion in annual worldwide revenues.

And with that kind of money, it's not just the musicians who are hitting the number pads. Movie studios are offering lengths of film dialogue and sports figures are recording shout-outs. So it could be goodbye to ring-ring and hello to "Twenty-three, thirty-seven - HUT!"

Sandy Fisher is the content manager of Funtonia.com, a site specializing in mp3 ringtones.