Two years ago I gave my nephew a Nokia 3300 and after a couple months I asked him if he wanted any ringtones for it. He told me he didn’t need any, he had started to cable load music on the phone and use it as an MP3 player. The phone was able to use the loaded MP3s as ringtones, once I saw this I knew the lifecycle of the ringtone was on the decline.
The recent announcement of Infospace’s loss of Cingular as a client for its ringtone service and the dramatic dip in its stock, plus the recent selloff of Jamster from Verisign to News Corp are all signs that the ringtone segment is in store for a shake up. New services such as Mixxer will allow the creation of personal ringtones as well as ringtone creation from your MP3 music catalog.
BTW, When was the last time you downloaded a monophonic or polyphonic ringtone to your phone? or How many of you know what a polyphonic is? …. I am definately dating myself here.
