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December 22, 2004

Telephony and Music: More than just an "On-Hold" Relationship

For the longest time I thought that the only convergence between the Telecom industry and the Music industry was: Music On-Hold. A strong illustration of their basic differences is seen in the way these two industries have handled disruption: Music has generally been quick to sue (and sue and sue), while Telecom has tended to turn towards regulatory relief.

As it turns out, though, these seemingly divergent industries have found a way to make great music - and great telecom -- together. I mean, who would have thought that ringtones would grow into over a (US$) 3 billion worldwide dollar business? And today the term "ringtone" yields over 61 million website hits on Google! Yes, Music has become the new content king for Telecom.

One new twist on ringtones that is now being offered by service providers that I find quite interesting is custom ringback tones. With this new service you can specify the sound that a specific caller will hear when they call your phone. For instance, I can now program my phone service so that each time my friend Danny calls he is presented with a ringback tone of Elton John's "Daniel" (assuming I own that ringtone, of course) instead of the ubiquitous phone-ringing sound. Now I have no idea how popular the ringback tone feature will be or how many people will find it worth paying for, but who is to say that it won't grow into another $3 billion dollar space?

Looking ahead, I expect to see an ever-increasing growing synergy between the Music industry and the Communications industry, and not just due to the continued evolution of ringtones technology. Many of today's cell phones and phone-service-enabled PDAs are coming equipped with much greater file storage capacity, memory and media-playing software, which is likely to result in a significant penetration into the on-demand portable music space by Telecom operators.

The future is happening! Sometimes you just need to take a moment and listen. :-)

Posted by jeff on December 22, 2004 08:12 AM | Permalink

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I hate to poo poo this because I believe Jeff's right, but inter-carrier problems will plague this for quite some time. My wireless carrier FIDO, as an example, overlays a network-generated ring tone over jeff's funky custom ring tone. The result is pretty cacophonous (to me, the humble caller) when I ring Jeff..

As for ring tones... it's been one step forward, two steps back. Polyphonic MIDI versions of Lenny Kravitz are just pathetic. I want to download MP3 files from my computer or a web site to my phone and use them as ring tones. As a bonus I could edit the MP3s and use specific fragments of a song, or even (god forbid) get creative and make my own, use samples from the Simpsons, etc.

Of course, the industry has profoundly resisted giving people what they want. While most phones have the technical capability, wireless phone makers (except in the case of a handful of phones) have resisted implementing a usable MP3 ringtone capability.

Why? Because it puts the power of choice in the hands of the consumer. It also would kill the ring-tone business (people paying more $$ for a crappy MIDI version of a song than they would on iTunes for the original).

I'm sure the RIAA has voiced their opinion on the matter, too.. shall we all pay performance rights for our ringtones?

Posted by: Ian Bell at January 25, 2005 03:34 PM

Custom ringback tones are a big hit in India too, it seems. A local cellular carrier, Airtel, has begun to offer this service. And from all accounts, it looks like a big hit. Another twist could be the ability to offer custom voice messages (instead of ring tone) to specific callers, "Jack, dont take the 2nd Av to get to the party. Its jammed. Better take...".

Posted by: Manoj Sati at December 25, 2004 05:10 AM

I hate to say I told you so, but I know I've thought this for a long time, this is one of the reasons got into VoiceXML.

Posted by: John Higgins at December 23, 2004 04:00 AM

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