Back in August we told you about this.
Now the results are in:
NEW DELHI (AFP) – A media campaign featuring a mobile phone ringtone that sings “condom condom” has pushed up sale of the contraceptive by 85 million in six months, India’s AIDS control body said Friday.
ADVERTISEMENTThe campaign, which included television and radio advertisements, reached 150 million men, especially migrant workers who frequent sex workers.
Excellent!
Is just the question I’m asking!
You see, the other day I was sitting in the School Library working hard on a piece of History work, when a class came in and began working on the available computers. The class was a mixture of boys and girls who were thirteen/fourteen years young.
A group of these boys, who were sitting in front of me, immediately used the internet to find pictures of action-hero/game characters to photograph on their phones to use as wall-papers.
And you know what?
It made me realise… What is the point in having premium products when pretty much anything you could ask for is readily available on the internet for free?
Personally, I’ve NEVER bought a ringtone, wall-paper, game, application or anything of the sort. I know for one fact, it’s a con. I’ll end up being tied to an endless subscription of other crap I don’t want, and costing me the earth to fund too! But also I know I can get whatever I want, whenever I want it, completely free.
I’ve never completely understood why at least presently, why companies such as Jamster, or the dozens of others who offer such a costly services still manage to get customers. Then again, people will never cease to amaze me!
However, say my Mum for instance, a perfect example of someone who doesn’t quite comprehend how much of a rip-off the Ringtone/wallpaper business is.
About a year or so ago she went through this phase of buying ringtones from T-Mobile. Now a ringtone according to T-Mobile was a thirty second, low quality clip from a song. Now my Mum over a period of say half a year bought only around two or three, but it actually set her back £2.50 per tone.
That’s £2.50 for a poor sounding, thirty second sample of a song. iTunes (as much as I dislike the service) offers a full track for 79p. How on earth does this make any sense?
Of course, me being the money-tight, and scared of spending person that I am, told my Mum off several times for such lavish expenditure on such a poor quality product. However, it was a case of, “I want, I get”.
I think the same can be said to the other more “adult” services which are available to mobile users. Dare I reiterate the countless adverts that appear on several channels after ten o’clock – but the point is people pay (quite a lot) for something which they can get for free. I don’t understand it, but I’m not going to try and understand it.
Although saying that, I wonder how much of a future these companies have. I can only imagine (and hope really), that as we get more technologically in gear, and as new generations become more equipped to the world of mobiles and computers that maybe in the near future such rip-off schemes may not exist.
I can’t blame T-Mobile, Jamster, or any of the other companies mainly for this; as actually I think its part stupidity on our behalf too. It’s just amazing how thirteen year olds are already grasping the concept of getting what they want for no cost. As Bluetooth, and probably, better technologies come into existence, I can only imagine that sharing, and moving our media around devices will only get easier, and quicker.
I can also only hope for the sanity of myself, and quite possibly many others, as dodgy ringtone manufacturers will cease to exist. Stick a nice classical piece as your ringtone – it’s what I’ve done!
Send any e-mails, questions or anything else to samantha@mobileindustryreview.com
For a number of years now there has been a feud between two of the biggest basketball stars in the US – Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. It started when they played together at the LA Lakers and escalated when Kobe accused Shaq of ‘paying women for personal services’ … whatever that may mean.
Shaq took the feud to new levels by recently getting up in a New York nightclub and rapping about Kobe missing out on the NBA Championship Finals, asking “Kobe, tell me how my ass tastes.” The YouTube clip of the rap has had nearly 600,000 views already.
Well, now you can have the rap as your mobile ringtone thanks to FunMobility. If you want to download it, you can get from FunMobility.
I suppose that in the UK it would be the equivalent of JohnTerry and Wayne Rooney squaring up to each other … then again that will happen almost every week once the Premiership starts again!
According to the New York Times, Apple boss Steve Jobs isn’t happy with the musical attributes of the iPhone. The Times reckons the company is currently thrashing out a new deal with record labels to make sure the handset is up to scratch musically in time for the expected launch of the 3G model in June.
The paper says Apple’s hoping to expand its inventory of ringtones and ‘answer tones’ tones – the music the caller hears instead of the phone ringing while waiting for the person they’re caling to pick up – and, more interestingly, whether iPhone owners will be able to buy iTunes tracks over the mobile network, rather than sideloading them from a PC.
In return, the Times says, the record labels are asking for Apple to allow them to set variable pricing or introduce a subscription model, rather than sticking to the traditional 99 cents per song pricing scheme.
The fact that Apple is only now talking about ringtones and downloading music over mobile networks shows how much of a mistake launching with a 2G model may have been for the company – the original 2G model could prove to be the undoing of Apple’s fixed price model, which it’s stuck to since it launched iTunes way back when. The alternative, of course, is that Apple sticks to its guns and tells the labels to go jump – and risk losing out on all that lovely data revenue.
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