Ringtones have been all the rage in recent years, generationg tens of millions of dollars in revenue for a music industry seeking new ways to squeeze water out of a rock. Okay…just kidding, of course.

Ringtones really have become an important sales tool and revenue driver for both artists and labels alike. Once considered a fad, master ring tones can sell upwards of a million units as over-the-air, direct downloads to mobile phones. Because the mobile service providers networks are closed, it’s pretty hard to share ringtones, which makes these digital shorts of popular music an attractive, legal revenue opportunity for labels being hurt by p2p over the web.

At first, ringtones were predominantly the domain of major label partnerships with mobile phone companies. However, over the past few years, we’ve seen a rise in software that allows anyone to create a ringtone and some phone companies are allowing users to add ring tones to their own phones.

The software to create these ring tones was rudimentary at first and desktop based. You could create a ring tone, but if you didn’t have a phone that could connect to your computer or  one with a flash drive, it was pretty difficult to get what you creatd onto your phone. Fast forward a few years later and now with better web technologies in place, companies like ToneMine.com are enabling aspiring DJ/Producers with the ability to create ring tones right in the browser window using DJ-Tutor, an Adobe Flash (or is it Silverlight? I’m not even sure), browser-based mixer (as shown below).

Tone Mine have partnered with Blackberry to host a “Battle of the Ringtone DJs” contest on the site, which can be accessed at http://www.tonemine.com/djtutor. Anyone can access the contest, download the pre-selected sample packs directly into the DJ-Tutor mixer and create unique ring tones. Once your ringtone is posted, you can tell your friend to come listen and even download. Winners of the contest will receive Blackberry smartphones.