Whenever I Hear Pimp Juice, I think I have a phone call.

I'm not kidding, I have a friend who's cell phone ringer is Nelly's Pimp Juice. He hears the sweet sound of the thumping bass and familiar hook, and he knows he's got a call. Another one of my friend's ringtones is Rock the Casbah. Another one's is a Hilary Duff song. Apparently, a customized ringtone says something about who you are as a person - whether you have a Hip-hop song versus a Pop song versus an actual (gasp) ring as your ringtone. I'm not one to judge, but I am one to be annoyed. By the 2nd time I hear someone's customized pop song ring tone, I would like to throw it out the window.

I believe the customized ringtone is a fad, not a stable trend. However, record labels do not agree. Rather than focusing on digital distribution, digital rights management, or an alternative format to radio, they believe the future of the industry for them lies within royalties from cellphone ringtones.

Actual songs as ringtones have been coined "realtones" and when looking for them on the internet one can literally choose from hundreds of websites selling them for a dollar or less, a dollar or more, or offering all sorts of subscriptions for one, six or up to twelve months. Unlimited realtone downloading for up to a year - who can resist that?

In all seriousness, though, the ringtone industry is clearly booming. Over $2.6 billion dollars were spent on the ringtone industry last year and, according to British marketing firm Ovum, $6.5 billion dollars is expected to be spent in 2008. The internet is a plethora of ringtone sites and my friends are always excited about their newest ringtone (which means another $2+ purchase for the record companies).

According to this Time Magazine article, people spend money to buy a 20-30 second song not to listen to the song itself or because the quality is good, but because it makes a statement about who you are. Everytime one's phone rings, he or she is telling everyone around them that this song represents them. And this is exactly how the industry got started. Vesku Panaanen, chief technical operator of a Finnish media group, was sick of hearing the same simple ring everytime he received a call. He wanted a song that he liked and thought represented him and he fought for it. Thus, the industry was born.

By charging between $2 and $6 for a song one can buy in its entirety from iTunes for a fraction of that, record labels, mobile operators and music publishers have created a fierce competition for who gets the biggest slice of the pie. They are all basically extorting consumers, presumably to make up for illegal downloading. And, not surprisingly, record labels feel this is where they can make the most money.

This ringtone industry has exploded with the advent of new technology. Thinking to the future, it seems logical that once cellphone popularity fades in the wake of a new form of technology, so will the ringtone industry. While Thomas Hesse of Sony BMG wholeheartedly believes that "this is not a fad", it seems to scream fad to me. Once again, it seems that record labels are scrambling to catch up to a train that has already left the station. Rather than thinking ahead and taking risks, they find the fastest growing trend, put their weight behind it, and pretend that they created its success. This is certainly not a long-term fix and will leave the labels struggling even more than they already are in a few years.