September 09, 2008

By By Antony Bruno, San Francisco

Verizon Wireless kicked off the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment conference with a series of music-related announcements.

First, Verizon created a Facebook application called Ringback Buddies, which lets Verizon subscribers invite their friends to recommend which songs they would prefer hearing when they call. In addition, it lets users see which songs other friends on the Facebook prefer via their profiles, and then buy and assign the corresponding ringback tones to them.

The operator also added several make-your-own-ringtone services. The Make-UR-Tone service from mSpot allows users to turn any track they like into a ringtone by editing it to the 30-second clip they like. YouTones allows users to record their own voice and blend it into any audio they like, and ToneMaker from Sonic Boom lets users compose their own music.

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