Cell Phones Summon School Spirits

Cell phone rings are graduating from annoyances to actual fights. Fight songs, that is. Companies are now offering alumni a chance to rah-rah-rah before they blah-blah-blah.

Combining what are, for some people, the world's two least-welcome sounds may not sound like a good business idea. Nonetheless, Schoolfightsongs.com and Zingy.com are among the contenders to add "Alma Mater," "Hail Purdue," "Boola Boola" and "Win for Michigan" to the growing din of cell phone rings.

According to a recent feature in the Chronicle for Higher Education (Nov. 7, 2003), Schoolfightsongs.com offers more than 400 different songs (cost: $5 per song). According to the company web site, their songs are "compatible with 65 models of Nokia phones and the Sony Ericsson T300 and T610, on 15 different cell phone networks in the United States and 385 networks globally."

Founder Charlie Card was inspired after programming University of Iowa's fight song into his own phone to support his daughter, a member of the Hawkeyes' marching band.

So far Card has attracted only 5000 customers, but he anticipated receiving a spike of business during the recent football bowl season.

Dash down the field to SchoolFightSongs.com, or Go-Go-Go to Zingy.com