Ringbacks haven’t ever had caught the imagination of the public like Ringtones did all those years ago. However they’re still popular — as this news from Virgin Mobile USA demonstrates.
Virgin reports that over 100,000 of their customers are subscribing to the $1.49/month service. You can choose individual ringback tracks for each of your friends. You could, theoretically, force your friend to listen to some absolutely ridiculous music. Or you can shuffle your tracks so that every time your friends call, they hear a different track. Not something I’d use but I can imagine a lot of teenagers loving this — Virgin reports that customers generally subscribe to an average of two tracks.
Each track that you buy costs $1.99 and is ‘good’ for 6 months (i.e. you need to buy it again in 6 months if you want it).
Most popular among Virgin Mobile customers are Ringback Tones in the hip-hop and R&B categories. Some of the top Ringback Tone titles selected by Virgin Mobile customers are: “Shawty Is A 10” (The Dream); “Bed” (J. Holiday); “Heaven Sent” (Keyshia Cole); “Crank That – Tell ‘Em/Ne-Yo Chorus (Soulja Boy); and “Apologize,” (by OneRepublic featuring Timbaland).
I couldn’t spot any of those tunes. Kudos to you if you know what a Timbaland is.
Interesting stuff.
I bought one from Orange in the U.K about nine months ago and had forgotten it is still in place. Most of my collegues in the dynamic media world didn’t know that these products were available when i first got it. Some even thought it was me singing! Strange.
Equally i have never had a follow up from Orange offering me to change the dam thing or upgrade to a monthly account, so fair play to Virgin on that one. Unless operator’s embrace these products and make it easy and attractive to buy they will never get off the ground. Like MMS i suppose.
Whilst i ca no longer class myself as a teenager (i.e. the target market), the thought of assigning annoying tones for the mother in law is very tempting. Perhaps Virgin could target the older market at a premium price for this service!!!
Who uses this gimmick I would love to know, as a 20 year old I have never heard of anyone using this sort of service in the UK!
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