New York - Universal Music Group announced on Tuesday that it has partnered with ID Interactive to offer a custom ringtone creation service for its family of labels. The UrTone player will allow consumers to select any part from any track from an artist, and customize a ringtone that is then delivered directly to their mobile phones.

White Plains, N.Y. - While overall U.S. music unit sales, which includes songs, albums, vinyl, music videos and ringtones, climbed 10.5% to 1.5 billion in 2008, total album sales -- including 10-song digital track groupings -- fell 8.5% to 428.4 million, according to a report from Nielsen SoundScan. Sales of physical albums like CDs fell 20%, to 362.6 million, and are off by 45% since 2000. Meanwhile, digital album sales were up 32% in 2008, to 65.8 million units, and digital track sales grew 27% to reach a record 1.07 billion.

London - Dada Entertainment, a digital distributor of music and other content, has partnered with Tailgate Technologies, a provider of e-commerce technology that enables transactions directly within online banner advertisements, to sell songs and ringtones from banner ads served on MOG.com, ClickZ reported. Users click on the ads, enter their mobile phone number, and are sent a PIN which will unlock the download, with the charges applied to a user's mobile account.

New York - Major label Universal Music Group said on Monday that it has licensed catalog to Dada Entertainment, the operator of a digital and mobile entertainment distribution service. Under the terms, Dada.net will make UMG songs available for purchase and downloads as DRM-free full-track MP3s and ringtones from all major mobile carriers. The company -- a joint venture between Dada USA and major label Sony BMG -- also offers Sony BMG content, and said content from other major and indie labels is on the way.

Santa Monica, Calif. - Mobile Messenger, a provider of mobile content management and distribution technology, has announced a deal with major label EMI Music to offer the major label's catalog as ringtones through its service. The company currently operates in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand an South Africa.

San Francisco - Nearly half of U.S. "tweens" (ages 8-12), or about 20 million young consumers, are using cell phones, according to a report from Nielsen Mobile.

San Francisco - RealNetworks (NASD: RNWK) on Wednesday announced the release of Cutting Tune, a service that mobile network operators can use to allow subscriber to select any portion of songs made available from content partners as ringtones or ringback tones. Customers of RealNetworks' ringtone distribution services include SK Telecom and Verizon Wireless.

Los Angeles - China Mobile, which counts over 421 million subscribers in China, said that it has surpassed 80 million subscribers to its new M.Music Wireless Music Club, up from 48 million reported in September 2007, Digital Music News reported.