Cell phone and music. Even though ringtone purchases are on the decline, companies are pondering eagerly how to combine cell phones and music most profitably. Apart from unspectacular ideas like convincing teenagers via popular tv series that they need at least 5 different ringtones in order to know right at the first beep which one of their best friends is calling, there are also some innovative concepts. Companies agree anyway that cell phone users will compose their ringtones on their own, or will just use their favorite song in the future. Consequently, the Turkish wireless company Turkcell has recently discovered the ringback tone as a means of advertising. The caller receives the advertising message, while waiting for the friend to pick up the phone. He/She is even rewarded for listening to the advertising message. The longer he/she is listening the more free minutes he/she will receive at the end of the month. Actually, a good idea, but very annoying when you have to reach someone who does not answer the phone over a longer period of time. These people will probably be cursing the advertising messages after some time with or without free minutes. On the other hand, if collecting free minutes pays off, and people have a real benefit from the advertising messages, the concept may have a promising future.

Another possibility the music industry has discovered is push ringtones. That is the caller decides what ringtone the called person has to listen to. If the one called likes the ringtone, the tone can be purchased by just pressing a button. One, however, wonders if it is a good idea to first make people spend money on relatively expensive ringtones and then give the right to decide on the ringtone to the caller. In addition, I am sure that there are some extremely funny people in the world that will use exactly the one song that you hate most. That would really make me mad! Another problem is that you will never know if your cell phone is ringing or the one of another person. Because after all, you don’t know the ringtone beforehand. In this case, there will be two possible scenarios: People either react to every beep, and start rummaging around in their purse hectically, or they do not answer the phone at all anymore because they assume that it is the cell phone of someone else.

But this is not all: In the future, digital business cards in the form of small videos are supposed to start and end a call. Instead of answering the phone by saying “yes”, you first send a small video back, and only then the traditional conversation is started. The same procedure is happening when saying goodbye: little videos back and forth. The US is said to already offer this service, but it is not yet very popular. I am skeptical about this video concept as well since I would definitely not feel like watching little videos - that are just about showmanship - every time I call someone. This concept sounds a lot like a complication of the act of calling. I have the impression that companies sometimes forget how annoying some of the new marketing and commercialization concepts can be for a cell phone user.

Conclusion: Interesting approaches, but with regard to the nerves of the cell phone users the actual realization of these concepts should be worked over a little bit.