August 13, 2003
Ringtones: The new currency of cool
An interesting commentary in The Guardian on yesterday's headlines on how ringtones sales are expected to overtake sales of CD singles by next year.
"For technological historian Jon Agar, the fact that ringtones have become such a fad both in the playground and at the watercooler - and a constantly updated tune, among some teenagers, the new currency of cool - shows, once again, how it is the users of technology who call the shots. "Like fashion in clothes, it's another way of expressing individuality, and this time, expressing it to anyone within earshot," he points out. "In that sense it communicates better than fashionable clothes, which might take a trained eye to spot."
This brings to mind an interesting entry a while ago by Techdirt, on Psychologist Graham Wilson's theory that your choice of a ringtone is more revealing about yourself than you think ... cf What Your Ringtone Says About You.
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