MobHappy

Orgasmatones Ready For Climax

Forget groantones -- why let somebody else have all the fun when you can have your very own personalized "orgasmatone"?

The industrious Alfie Dennen and his team have put together recordings of women screaming the pleasures of the 500 most popular male names in the UK (complete with bow-chicka-bow-bow background music), seriously raising the stakes in the porno ringtone biz. Big-name porn stars that have gotten in to the ringtone business charge more than Orgasmatones for generic dirty-talkin' ringtones, with no personalization.

More DIY Ringtones

I meant to post this last week, but it slipped through the cracks. Fortunately Matt Maier at MobilePlaya picked it up: Warp Records's cool Bleep.com download store (which sells un-DRMed music) will let users choose snippets of songs from Bleep's catalog and make their own ringtone.

Capitol New Media VP on Cingular Deal

Matt Maier has a great interview with Capitol Records' VP of New Media (Ted Miko, who was involved in the "innovative" Cingular Sounds deal earlier this week) over at his equally great MobilePlaya mobile music and gaming blog.

Forget everything I said about the service being about promoting Capitol artists; it's a total money-grab by Capitol, which considers the ringtone and the underlying Coldplay single "completely separate". Miko says the point isn't to boost music sales, but the deal was made "because we felt the ring tone was worth releasing." And from the rest of his comments, it's clear that was a financial, rather than artistic, decision.

But the real gem comes when Maier asks, "Would it ever make sense to give the ringtone away? It seems you could give it away, build a lot of buzz with consumers, and—most likely—people would go out and purchase more albums or singles."

Miko predictably replies: "Absolutely not. We could also sell the ringtone and build a lot of buzz and have people then purchase the album. One is probably a much better business than the other."

The only problem is he's probably wrong about which business is better.

Cingular: Promoting Music By Making You Pay For It

US operator Cingular has launched a new "innovative music program" that sees it releasing ringtones before they're heard anywhere else, or simultaneously with their debut on radio. The company said this gives its users "a whole new way to enjoy music", but more importantly, "the entertainment industry a powerful channel to reach tens of millions of potential listeners".

So record labels and bands like Coldplay will use the tones to push their latest releases. Given the labels' penchant for putting more importance on physical sales than digital ones, you'd think they'd treat these tones as promotional material to drive CD sales, which they undoubtedly are -- "Releasing 'Speed of Sound' as a ringtone helps us build excitement for the release of X&Y," Coldplay's manager said in the release -- but no. To have the privilege of promoting a band's new release, users must pony up $2.49. Plus data charges.

Undoubtedly, some fans will flock to these tones and pay whatever's being charged for the chance to get their first taste of a new release -- which makes the tones little more than exploitation. Coupled with the backlash against some ringtone sellers, this is yet more evidence that there's little interest in building a long-term business for ringtones instead of greedily going after whatever short-term gains can be had. The potential problem for the mobile music business (as well as other mobile content sectors) is that these sorts of practices and bad experiences will turn consumers off from mobile content all together.

Roxio To Retail Xingtone

Roxio, the maker of popular CD-burning software, says it will distribute Xingtone's DIY ringtone software at retail outlets. Xingtone lets users take audio files on their computers and turn them into ringtones -- functionality record labels are beginning to include on CDs as well.

DIY ringtone software and services could put a dent in ringtone sales, an area where consumers are likely getting tired of high prices and questionable selling practices. Got an e-mail today about WeNeedTunes, a free Web site/service that lets users upload their music and then converts it to mobile-friendly formats for a number of different handsets. The site also plans to add video and image functionality in the future.

These things that let users format and transfer media they already own to their mobiles will become more prevalent as the demand for personal mobile media grows. For the time being, it's independent efforts outside the scope of operators or media companies that are set to capitalize on it.

Hedgehog Ringtones

First "moantones," now "groantones." Porn star Ron Jeremy is getting into mobile content, Ringtonia says. In addition to porn, he'll be selling ringtones and all kinds of other stuff you'd be embarrassed to show in public. At least he's got a cool icon, though.

Bundling Custom Ringtones

Atlantic Records UK says the new CD single from rapper Fabolous it released this week contains software that lets users choose any part of the song and download it to their mobile for use as a ringtune. Based on "MyTone" software from Bounce Technology, buyers put the CD in their computer, choose which part they want as a ringtune, and MyTone sends an SMS with a WAP link to download the content, which is free beyond any data traffic charges.

It's an interesting new combination of things that aren't really new -- record companies have been offering ringtones and other mobile content to entice people to buy hard copies of music, and MyTone sounds a lot like Xingtone, except Bounce is selling to record labels rather than end users.

But why would Atlantic UK choose to cannibalize ringtone sales by giving them away? It's just a reflection of the higher priority record labels put on sales of physical goods, rather than digital ones.