Ringtones - There's More Than Meets The Ear

Who would have believed that my little "Klonies Blogging Idol" would get so much participation! :) For those of you who haven't heard about it, I'm looking for blogging talents among the Avatars Group, to get them blogging in our upcoming Klonies Blog. So let me introduce you to my third guest, Assaf Katan, also known as the man behind the Klonies branded content. Well, enough said... Assaf, the stage is yours!

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Ringtones have long been Mobile Content's number 1 killer app - miles ahead of any other killer-app wannabes, niche applications or come & go hypes. While it could seem that ringtones have exhausted their potential and reached maximum usage, the demand - together with operators' and content owners' revenues - keeps growing at surprisingly high rates.

The ringtones themselves, in parallel to the handsets, have also evolved - from monophonic, to polyphonic, to better-sound-polyphonic, and now to realtones (also called true-tones and several other names), which are actual clips from the original sound tracks.

All this said, there one thing that I find lagging behind - what we can actually do with ringtones, or more so to what extent a user can "exploit" that piece of content he (or she) paid for. Let me explain: on any given phone at any given time, a user usually has one - and only one - active primary or default ringtone. This ringtone plays when most calls come in. If this is a slightly more sophisticated user, he may have 1-2 additional active ringtones assigned to specific important phone numbers. And that's it!

Think for a moment of a heavy user, that downloads a new ringtone every 2-3 weeks (and there are many such users). In essence, this users pays about $2 for a ringtone once or twice a month, and in most cases this "investment" is only "exploited" for 2-3 weeks, when he downloads the next ringtone. True, the old ones are still saved on his handset, but he can only use one at a time so it would usually be the latest and greatest one.

What's the alternative? Now this is where I openly and admittedly take advantage of this Blog (but only in a good way...) to introduce, and get feedback on a new application - a "ringtone manager". In a nutshell, this application lets users use several ringtones in parallel, according to their preferred mode, e.g.:

• "Business/ pleasure" mode: you choose 2 ringtones, one is your default ringtone during business/ school hours (until 17:00, or anything else you define) and the other for non-business hours
• "Day of the week" mode: you choose 7 of your many ringtones, and each is now assigned to be your default ringtone for each day of the week (you don't actually have to use 7, you can have duplicates)
• "Sequential" or "Random" modes: choose as many of your ringtones as you like, and they will play when calls come in according to a given sequence (i.e. 5 ringtones that repeat their order every 5 calls) or randomly… and these are just examples, the options here are much broader

The critics (and there are always critics…) would argue that this is problematic - people recognize their phone by its ringtone and this way they might actually miss calls. While this is true to a certain extent, this application is targeted at heavy users of mobile in general and particularly ringtones and other forms of mobile content. For these users, I believe this will not only be a non-issue, it will actually be an additional fun factor.

And finally: in the spirit of the previous column, "Good Old Consumer Marketing", by the great Tal Dagan, I fully agree that as good as an application is, the "technology" (so to speak) is not enough. Therefore, I am proud to conclude by unveiling this new application's not-so-original yet highly-appropriate name: "Lord of the Rings"!

Technorati Tags: assaf katan, ringtones, ringtone manager,mobile content

Comments

[Avner Ronen]

your post made me come up with a new idea.. can't disclose here...

[Tom Sella]

well, considering most (ok, i'm a nokia nut, so strike that "most" and read as "nokia", since that's almost all i've used for the past 10+ years) already have profiles (with timed activation) and groups to which you can assign a ringtone, and yet, most people (i know) don't bother with them, i'm not so sure you'll be able to find a justifiable market size to support such an application.

that, coupled with the fact that the phone maker actually manages the ringtone app (with the possible exception of the smarter phones), i have to say i'm a nay-sayer.

i'm a critic, and proud to be one (with the exception of my own ideas, of course).