A little while ago I was given a personal demonstration of a new user generated content service called Phonezoo. Phonezoo is a ringtone creation service with a twist - it allows anyone to create a ringtone from any piece of digital audio they have, simply by uploading it and selecting a part of the tune to use as the ringtone. The audio can be something you've created, a WAV file, or any MP3.

Once you've uploaded a tune, an intuitive web-based interface can be used to select a small section of the audio, which will become the actual downloadable ringtone, and a number of options are given to tag the created ringtone. Once created, the ringtones are made available to anyone to download, as long as the ringtone has not been made private.

To avoid the possibility of allowing people to create ringtones from commercial music, the service has a number of flags allowing people to mark ringtones as copyright, and the only way another registered user can then download that tone is by proving they already own the song.

This is done by uploading another digital copy of the track, which is then checked for veracity. You can then download the portion of the tune selcted by the ringtone creator and have it sent to your own handset.

To make the service more social, Phonezoo also provides download charts, search functions, and the ability to rate someone else's created ringtone, as well as leaving comments on individual ringtones.

Also included, for a bit fo fun, is a ringtone 'faceoff', where two ringtones are set alongside each other, and a user chooses their favourite. At the time of writing, the two ringtones were related to US Universities.

Finding ringtones is also very easy, as every created ringtone can be associated with a genre of music, and downloading is also made easy, with the site automatically converting stored audio to a format suitable for a user's handset, as long as the handset is supported.

Currently Phonezoo only works in the US with US carriers, although the company is looking to launch in other territories in the near future. As well, the company is also working to provide a wider range of officially created ringtones for subscribers.