RealNetworks’ Listen looks to reinvent the ringback

With MultiMedia Intelligence estimating the worldwide market for ringback tones at $4 billion, RealNetworks hopes to reinvent the genre with Listen, a new app that enables users to play DJ and assign songs that their favorite callers will hear on their end while the smartphone rings.

Listen automatically suggests five people from your contacts list, but the choice is up to you to target family members, friends, co-workers or all of the above. From there, you simply assign each person a specific song from acts like Taylor Swift to Rihanna, and those songs will play on the caller’s end as they’re trying to reach you.

Once assigned, contacts are hit up via SMS to let them know that a special song has been chosen for them, encouraging them to give you a call and hear the music.