The Official Palm Blog: Topical ringtones for your smartphone

Looking for a fresh, new and extremely topical ringtone for your Palm Centro or Treo smartphone this campaign season?

Slate is offering bi-partison, multi-platform political ringtones for the politically minded, and it’s making them very easy to get. Either send a text from your mobile phone to Slate's text shortcode to get the free download (specifics included in the below article), or click on the app from the web browser on your smartphone, and, voila, you have a new ringtone in the voice of your favorite candidate in seconds. I just did it with my Palm Centro, and it took about 45 seconds all told (but I’m not going to tell you which one I downloaded...that’d be TMI).

- Paul Loeffler

http://www.slate.com/id/2189303/

It's 3 A.M. What's Your Ring Tone?New from Slate: The Hillary laugh and more political sound bites for your phone.

Updated Thursday, May 8, 2008, at 7:07 AM ET
Illustration by Robert Neubecker. Click image to expand.

Already got a dozen Barack Obama headbands? Worn out your "Hot for Hillary" T-shirt? It's time for a new campaign accessory: Slate's political ring tones. Get one of these clips, and you'll hear John McCain say, "My friends," every time you get a call. Or if you're in a less friendly mood, you can switch to the "Shame on you, Barack Obama!" ring tone.

To get a ring tone, send a text message with one of the order codes listed below to the number 98999. For the Hillary laugh, for example, text SLATE LAUGH to the number 98999. We'll send the ring tone to your phone as a text message that includes a downloadable link. For more detailed instructions, click here. Or if you just want to listen to the clips on your computer, click one of the embedded players below or use the "Download MP3" links to save to your hard drive.

Slate's political ring tones are free of charge, though standard text-messaging rates may apply. Please see our terms and conditions for more details.

Ring tones are available only for AT&T, Cellular One, T-Mobile, and Sprint. (Downloading by Verizon customers is currently unsupported.) In order to download ring tones, you must have text-messaging and data-download services enabled on your mobile phone. If you're not certain whether your phone is SMS-enabled or Internet-enabled, please check with your wireless carrier. Unfortunately, there's too much variation among phones to describe the download and installation process for each handset. Please don't blame us if you can't get your ring tone to work—blame the wireless carriers for failing to come up with a simple, common procedure to do this sort of thing. Good luck, because we think the payoff is worth the minor hassle.