Death Of Ringtone Sales?
While Apple's iPhone announcement has you trying to figure out how to break your cell-phone contract, Blackbeard SEO ponders the future of the ringtone:
Let me be the first to say that the iPhone is huge problem for the ringtone industry. In many ways it makes the ringtone industry completely obsolete. It’s an iPod so any song that you own can be used as a Ringtone. Don’t want to pay $1.99 for a low-quality re-sampling of a song that you already own to be used as your ringtone? Great, you don’t have to. What about wallpapers? Well, any photo on the iPhone can be used as a wallpaper, so just download one from the iPhone’s built-in web browser and you’re golden. Goodbye $9.99 per month ringtone subscription fees!Makes sense. But what's next for Crazy Frog?! Poor sucker. Does anyone actually subscribe to ringtone services for ten bucks a month? Does anyone actually buy wallpaper?! But those four-tone things were fun for a minute. Which ringtone was your favorite? Which one sucked the most ass? We nominate the sax-for-guitar shitfest that was "Undone (The Sweater Song)". We want our dollar back! While you think, here's video from Steve's big announcement. In 1984....
In 3-5 years just about all of the newest phones will have easy syncing with your music library and the paid ringtone market will shrivel up and die. Only the older phones will need ringtone services and as they are replaced the amount of people subscribing will dwindle to almost nothing.
Posted at 4:11 PM in Video
-->
-->
Something to consider here is that there is and will always be a "low-cost" market - the people that can't or won't pay for the feature-rich phones. There are countless groups of people (students, low-tech, etc) that will always go for the "free with contract" type phones, which, for the foreseeable future, will not have the rich multimedia capabilities of the iPhone.
Yes, the ringtone industry will take a hit. But, like any other tech company, if they continue to provide the service to their core audience (and be willing to change that service and audience) then the savvy companies will do just fine.
Jason
http://www.otmg.net
Score = 0
with my mac + my cingular RAZR i can make and use any ringtone that i want right now. currently i have the intro from wolf parade's "you are a runner".
on another note, the mac has made my profession viable.
thank you steve jobs.
Score = 0
Something to consider here is that there is and will always be a "low-cost" market - the people that can't or won't pay for the feature-rich phones. There are countless groups of people (students, low-tech, etc) that will always go for the "free with contract" type phones, which, for the foreseeable future, will not have the rich multimedia capabilities of the iPhone.
Yes, the ringtone industry will take a hit. But, like any other tech company, if they continue to provide the service to their core audience (and be willing to change that service and audience) then the savvy companies will do just fine.
Jason
http://www.otmg.net
Score = 0
Even the cheapest phones these days let you put an mp3 as a ringtone.
Score = 0
Good riddance to the ringtone industry. And while we're at it, I wouldn't mind seeing those joke-a-day text message services disappear forever either.
Score = 0
did steve jobs program that stone age mac to give him a blow job?
Score = 0
"insanely great!" is almost as outrageous a selling point as iphone's "works like magic".
Score = 0
Well, we don't know if we will be able to do that on the "iPhone" right? Did I miss something? On my SEW810 I can't use any of my mp3s as a ringtone.
Score = 0
yes! those fucking commercials will come to an end!
Score = 0
Any company whose business plan centrally involves the concept of pay-for cellular wallpaper obviously deserves to be bankrupted.
Score = 0
Does this mean no more shock him?
Or slap the belly?
Or melt the ice?
Or connect three?
Or beat the Sumo wrestler?
Or outwash the blonde?
Score = 0
is it just me... or did steve jobs look just like tucker carlson?
that was creepy
Score = 0
almost all phones nowadays can play mp3 quality ringtones. You just gotta know how to hack em. Screw this industry. It's like you bought a shovel and can't use it unless you pay them to use the shovel. WTF!
Score = 0
THANKS FOR POSTING VIDEO OF THE NEW IPHONE!
I'm not sure if it'll fit in my pocket however....
Score = 0
anyone with bluetooth capabilities can already do this. everytime someone calls (and it gets past the vibe), daft punk tells me that i'm tuned into WDPK 83.7, the sound of tomorrow, the music of today. and i love them for that. much better than the Rock Lobster ring tone i actually bought before i knew what i was doing.
Score = 0
as i've heard it from iLounge.com's review, you actually CAN'T do this on the iPhone. for some odd reason, it won't let you just choose any song from iTunes as your ringtone. from their review:
"While the background can be set at any time from any picture on the unit - a really nice feature - ringtones cannot be set based on your iTunes Music, according to Apple, a limitation based on “rights issues” (read: the music industry). This is pretty surprising."
Score = 0
Oh no! I hope a product never comes out that would hurt the kiddy porn or spam industry, that would be horrible.
Score = 0
fuck everything, that computer TALKS.
also, fuck ringtones. vibrate's the way to go.
Score = 0
Ummm, people that ever paid for ringtones in the first place are idiots though. All you needed to do was buy a £6 bluetooth dongle type thing and shove it in a USB port, hey ho you can then send ringtones and photos for free.
F*ck the iPhone and f*ck what it stands for. It's nothing new and people should actually have some sense and not buy it. You already own everything it can do, why give in to what's "cool" the whole time. People need self retraint and need to learn to think for themselves rather than do what the media is telling them. Grow some brain you monkeys, or buy one of those walkman phones instead, they're actually decent and sufficient for what you really need.
Also, this Apple TV or whatever its called; has no one ever heard of Pinnacle's Show Center before? Has no one ever heard of Sonos? Just because it has 'i' before it or the Apple brand name it doesn't make it original, good, or worth the money. The whole TV on demand thing is becoming a lot more accessible as well, so don't waste your money!!!
Score = 0
Thank god, no more ringtone commercials on TV. They are uniformly the worst commercials out there.
Score = 0
Was this post from 2004, because I was unaware that anyone had bought a ringtone or wallpaper since then. My Cingular smartphone (refurb for $49) has been pumping my edited mp3s for ringtones (right now it's mostly the Young Folks whistle intro and the Wolfmother "Woman" outro) as ringtones for a year and it wasn't exactly cutting edge.
Score = 0