Ringtones. I bet you never thought you’d see the day when the sound your mobile phone made when it rang would be such a hot topic. Welcome to the 21st century.
The ringtones are hotter than Cameron Diaz on a summer day. There are a million places on the internet to download this stuff and the revenue generated from this business is staggering.
So what are ringtones and how do you get them?
Ringtones are digitally recorded waves that are played every time your cell phone rings. You can individually assign these tones to each number in your phone book so depending on who’s calling, you know who’s calling before you even look at your phone just by the sound it makes. Kind of like a voice ID.
As for where you get them, well, you don’t have to look very far. For starters, a number of ringtones come preloaded on your phone. They are usually divided into categories. First you have your standard ringtones like beeps and buzzes and then you have your musical ringtones. These can be anything from Christmas songs to jazz classics. Most phones today come with a pretty good selection.
The really GOOD things come from the Internet. There are companies that mainly deal with the supply of ringtones for mobile phones and the number of sites when doing a search on the Internet is 2 million pages. So how exactly do you get these personalized ringtones? Actually, it is quite simple. Go to any site after doing your search and you’ll find a page that probably has a list of ringtones. Click on the one you want. That will take you to a screen where you enter your phone, country, phone (phone brand), phone number, and carrier information. After completing all that, there is a button that you click to download the ringtone. After that, you connect your phone to the computer and transfer the ringtone from the computer to the phone. If you’re not sure if your phone supports downloading ringtones, most sites have a checklist where you can find out.
So what are the most popular ringtones? Well, that changes from day to day. In fact, Billboard magazine has a section with the top 10 ringtones of the week. As of this article, with Halloween fast approaching, John Carpenter’s theme from the cult classic movie “Halloween” is the second most popular ringtone. It’s a safe bet that by the time Halloween rolls around, this ringtone will have made it to the top of the charts. But it seems that this particular ringtone is popular throughout the year, having been on Billboard’s top 10 chart for 53 weeks. That is the longest of all the ringtones linked with “The Super Mario Brothers Theme”.
The cost of all this? Astronomical. A ringtone can cost as much as $2. Imagine wanting to download a dozen of these. The cost can add up quickly. Knowing this, companies always offer ringtones that they know people will want. Yes, this is a BIG deal.
