Why Are People Still Paying for Ringtones?

Many many phones ago I discovered ringtones as did we all.  I remember my first purchased ringtone being "Tubular Bells" which was actually the theme song to The Exorcist and purchased through T-Mobile's website.  OMG the sound.  Simple monotones in midi or wav format were easy to come across.  Sites like Zingy.com and ME43.com become popular for customizing phones such as the Nokia 3390.  And I know the paid sites made a killing.  Way back before wap was available ringtones were delivered via sms somehow.

When tones started changing it was obvious that people around would listen to what you had as your call alert.  Ringtones become popular in movies, music videos and even music tracks.  Janet Jackson's "All for U" tone could be heard in many areas of NYC mostly because she laid the tone down at the end of the track.  Then the search was on. 

Now with the advancement into newer phones and formats are people still purchasing or creating their own tones?  I spoke last year about my current ringtone.  Since then I've done some creating of my own.  Creating your own tones or tunes is really simplified if you have the right tools.  Using something like Audacity to cut your favorite song into a snippet has been the choice of many.  Or since we can now use full mp3's or aac's as ringtones we just leave it as that.  But are we taking away from the Ringtone business?  Why on earth would someone buy a ringtone these days?

I watch MTV alot and I always see advertisements to purchase a ringtone using a short-code.  People wake up!!!!  You can do it on  your own!  All by yourself!!  I would have thought by now the so called ringtone suppliers would be out of business.  But I guess its still going strong and progressing.  In my honest opinion its one form that should definately be done away with. 

Comments

[tom gordon]

Not everyone has the technically savvy to chop an audio file into component parts and then transfer it to their handset, and some handsets make it particularly difficult to transfer audio across as ringtones anyway - one I worked with recently would only allow a ringtone to be transferred over the air. Even though I could get the file across using bluetooth or a data cable, the phone wouldn't let me move the file to somewhere that could be accessed by the ringer software.

So the power users will continue to make their own ringtones (I use a short section from the end of a Shiina Ringo song myself), but downloadable ringtones will continue to be big business.

[Jussi]

"People wake up!!!! You can do it on your own! All by yourself!! "

Should I tell your advice to my mom? She's 80 years old and she has never used a
computer... I believe she even does not know what CD is.

There are lot of people who are uncapable of 1) using computer 2) ripping cd's 3) installing software 4) creating snippets of songs 5) moving files from computer to mobile phone. But still these people want to have a cool ringtones

[Raddedas]

I have never understood why anyone buys ringtones - aside from the 80 year old grannies who would realistically never be expected to master the homemade ringtone (are they big ringtone buyers anyway? I suspect not...). It is just one example of the exploitative behaviour of operators which could stifle mobile data growth in the longer term: http://techype.blogspot.com/2006/07/fat-kid-wants-all-sweeties.html

[Ari]

Perhaps it's a question of value vs effort. If you can afford the time to extract a song from your own CD (http://www.avecmobile.com/index.php?id=619) or download a MIDI tune (http://www.avecmobile.com/index.php?id=776), you don't have to pay for something that you already own.

[Televator]

You can use online ringtone maker to convert your music into custom ringtones
http://www.makeownringtone.com
It's easy and free.

[James Bailey]

do you have a work around now that cell phone manufacturers have stopped allowing us to create our own. All of the new phones make you purchase ringtones. Any info will be greatly appreciated.