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A Ringing Irony

April 18, 2005 › Sandy McMurray | comment

A new article on TechnologyReview.com points out a fascinating contradiction about digital music. The piece focusses on U.S. cellphone company, Cingular Wireless and its recent deal with Coldplay. The wireless giant bought the right to sell the fussy UK band's tunes, as ringtones.

Ringtones are custom musical snippets that cellphone owners can use instead of the generic ditties that come with their phones. Most a only a few seconds long and, coming from cellphone speakers, sound like cover versions performed by hamsters in a soup can. But, here's the weird thing.

Paris Hilton - Human Ringtone
If you want a Coldplay ringtone, it will cost you $2.49 US. Consider that, along side this: The U.S. ringtone business generated $209 million last year.

What's with that? As the TechnologyReview.com piece points out, the same generation that downloads free music and balks at paying 99 cents a song is happy to spend nearly 20 cents a second for a crappy version of a song.

Currency has something to do with it. Sometimes ringtones of songs are available prior to a song's commercial release. So, teens (the main ringtone market) can be seen as au courant by buying the latest earcandy for their mobiles. But, something else is at play.

A couple of years ago a UK-based ringtone site featured two columns listing ringtones. The lefthand column offered ringtones for free. The righthand column ringtones cost a pound. The next week they reversed the lists. So now, the free ringtones cost a pound and vice versa. The result? In both cases, the fee-based ringtones were more popular. So, they had value just because they had value. There was cache in spending money on a ringtone.

If that doesn't make sense, consider Paris Hilton. She's famous for being famous. She is a human ringtone. She has no more entertainment value than her own fame. If she sang a song I'm sure it, too, would sound like a hamster in a soup can.

One final point, just after I read the ringtone feature, I read this on the cbc.ca site. Eleven million kids in developing countries die each year from easily prevented diseases. I'm certain none of their friends are spending money on ringtones.

April 18, 2005 › Sandy McMurray | comment on this item