Services that insert sounds into mobile phone conversations

By Xeni Jardin at 8:31 pm Monday, Jan 31

A growing number of tech providers now offer "sound insertion" services for mobile phone users. Think: ringtones you plug into the "body" of a voice conversation. Sonic emoticons. Ronan Higgins of cafe.com says:

Lightwav for PalmOne Treo smartphones has a feature called "CoverUp Sound" where you can trigger sounds to play in the phone conversation.

I hear that this application is popular in Japan with cheating "salary men" husbands. They'll trigger sounds of a train station, a busy office or a bar, while explaining to their wives why they won't be home until later. Single men trigger the sound of a girl in the background saying "come back to bed" to make their male friends jealous.

I use it to insert a bad connection effect: "I can't hear you, you're breaking up on me, I'm losing signal, I'll have to call you back about that. Kshhhh."

In related news -- last week, San Francisco-based Phonebites nabbed a US$3MM venture round. They, too, offer a service that allows mobile phone users to insert a pre-recorded sound clip into a live conversation - like a radio soundboard, but for your cell phone. Here's a related Engadget post from last October: Link. (thanks, Marc Nathan, via the unwired list)

Update: BB reader Daniel says,

There's also such an application available for Seiries60 smartphones. The app is called CallCheater. And it works quite nicely.

Link