Wow! Love Your Ring!

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While online music services cajole buyers into dropping 99¢ on a pop hit, the wireless industry charges twice that for tinny, 30-sec. cellular ring tones based on the same tunes. And business is booming. Global revenues from ring-tone sales will top $4 billion this year, according to the consulting firm Strategy Analytics. New ways to customize your ring keep coming.

--From Top 40 to Your Phone

Pop stars from Britney Spears to Tim McGraw are cashing in on ring-tone royalties. The most popular phone tune at the moment: rapper 50 Cent's In Da Club.

--You Heard It on Television

Also hot: themes for TV shows, from ER to American Idol. MIDIringtones even carries tones from Fox News Channel. That's Bill O'Reilly on the line.

--No. 1 with A Bullet

In Britain, Music Week publishes a Billboard-style chart of ring-tone best sellers there. Top of the chart on the first biweekly list: Eamon's F___ It (I Don't Want You Back).

--Personal Hits

For those avoiding prefab tunes, there's Xingtone, a $15 software program that lets users record unique ringer sounds, from a child's song to a dog's bark.

--Lords of the Rings

German electro-punk act Super Smart (the panda heads are for anonymity) has released an album of ring-tone-only tunes, Panda Babies.