Mobile 'phone ringtone sales set to overtake CD single sales

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3143651.stm

I guess it had to happen sooner or later. How long before the charts will start to count ringtone sales as well as those of singles (or do they already?)? I guess the advance in technology will see it happen sometime soon but will the CD single become superseded? Personally, I don't think so, at least, not until the next new format really takes off in the way CD has, whatever it may be.

The only good thing about a ringtone single would be that, since it is only data on a 'phone, when you get bored of it you can delete it as opposed to having to keep or get rid of (via bin or selling) an actual physical item. Wonder how many unwanted CD singles get thrown away by when they become unwanted?

 

Just goes to show how fickle people are. Have you heard how bad mobiles sound, to me they sound like an amusement arcade machine (annoying).

GAZZ

 

Ian - go to ANY charity shop in the land, and you can answer the CD single question for yourself.

If it wasn't all teeny pap pop crap, I'd be snapping them up - but Bottyzone, Poo, Dusted, Limp Jizkit etc really don't float my boat.

How kids can afford £3.99 CD singles is beyond me anyway - cassingles were bad enough when I was 14...

I heard on this 80s show on Sky last night, that Altered Images sold 480000 copies of Happy Birthday and it still didn't make number one - even in 1990 New Kids got to number one with 30000 copies sold - wander how many singles need to shift now to get a number one if John Ottway managed a top ten recently?

Mobile ringtones suck - they should be made illegal - especially that bloody insipid Nokia one that business stiffs are too thick to change - ditto that nasty Erikson blur blue bleee one - I hate it - nooooooo!

 

And why do I still use it. Because all the other twats on the planet have changed it to some other wanky one.

 

No Lilo - please please tell me you don't use the "I'M ON THE CRAPPER!!!!" ringtone - noooooooo!!!!

Mind you, I'm stuck with the ones the 6310 comes with since you can't compose your own - I'm not paying 30 quid for an IRDA adaptor or even more to download a new tone. Mind you, I really ought to sort out java games at some point...

 

Luckily, most charity shops down here seem to be taking the hint and not putting them on the shelves since they don't sell. A couple of the ones in Exeter still have them though. Wonder what sells most nonedescriptairbrushedmimingpuppetboygirl"band" or Mantovani?

No idea, but his single sold around 11000 copies. IIRC the number 1 that week sold about 24000. If only he'd brought out a vinyl and cassette single as well he could've got to number one, most of those sales would've been fans/completists out to get the system anyway!

I agree. Mine's just a generic phone ringing sound, don't think I can download ringtones or anything, never really been interested enough to find out. So long as the thing can make a call and text, I don't give a toss about the rest of the features. It's a 'phone for crying out loud.

 

with most phones now being subjected to the convergence trend they'll all eventually be able to play mp3's or wav's for their ring tones so you could have anything as your ringtone. as for just being a phone to send / recieve calls or texts. personally i think that's a little limiting. you've got the processing power of an early 90's cutting edge pc in your pocket, you may as well use it. i keep my life on my phone, apointments, games, mp3's, notes, lists of cd's i want to buy. very useful and much better than the beermats, post its and scraps of paper i used to use to organise my life.
cheers

julian

 

I wish some computer genius out there would think of a way to virus into oblivion all these low-fi innovations that have already reached a level of endangering hi-fi to insignificance. Chances are, as technologies are being designed to accomodate more "affordable" music, quality on the other hand will have to be compromised. What is innovative is not necessarily quality. It sometimes even verge on the fringes of degradation.

CD companies may be forced to raise the cost of better recorded music if the demand for this diminishes. Either that, or they will start producing music designed to be accomodated by the low quality of reproduction that formats like MP3s are destined to be.

This reality could even affect the way future hardwares will be designed, just to accomodate cheap music.
It wouldn't make much sense anymore playing MP3 into a hi-tech gizmo.

Part of the issue here is the enjoyment of your choice of music to a near relistic experience, because the spiritual high is there. And tha's supposedly one aim of hi-fi.

Now if that aim is diminished, instead of upgraded, then
something is compromised instead of satisfied.

regards

 

osama,
mp3 at low bitrates is only going to replace portable formats such as minidisc and cassette. home listening will go multichannel in some form with high bit and sample rates as protection technology is much better on these formats than on cd.
as for mp3 killing off cd. i doubt it in the same way that 'home taping is killing music' was not an issue. i think the ones in tanger are those making dedicated mp3 devices.
cheers

julian

 

i for one would prefer that everyone had access to the music they enjoy, the music is the "high" surely