May 16, 2006
Mobile music looks beyond ringtones
The trend of personalizing one's mobile phone with music has proved quite lucrative for the world's record labels, reports Reuters.
"Ringtones, once dismissed as nothing more than a passing fad, have become a $3 billion worldwide market. But it's a market that is nearing maturation, with growth rates expected to fall to about 20% this year after doubling in 2005.
As a result, labels are now preparing different types of music clips they hope consumers will buy to personalize other mobile phone features.
More ringtone options:
-- Within a matter of weeks, several wireless operators are expected to introduce musical "alert tones" -- a snippet of a song lasting between two and five seconds, that users can assign to play when they receive incoming text messages and voice mail, similar to a ringtone.
-- A company called Endtone seeks to replace the beeping that occurs when a call has been dropped, concluded or otherwise disconnected with a musical alert.
-- Another, PhoneBites, has a service called Razz that enables phone users to insert audio clips into active conversations, outgoing messages and voice mail.
However, it may be too much of a good thing. "The personalization thing would appear to be played out," says Seamus McAteer, executive VP/senior analyst at mobile monitoring firm M:Metrics. "There are lots of ways music can be used to make a statement or add context, but it can go from the sublime to the ridiculous. You can't just add a jingle to everything you want to do with a phone. There are limits."
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