Songs in the key of "we"

Performing rights organization BMI last month issued its annual projections for U.S. ringtone sales, and the forecast wasn't promising. According to BMI, ringtone sales will decline to $550 million in 2007, down $50 million from a year ago--at the same time, however, ringback revenues will rise to about $65 million in 2007, making up the difference and then some. This week, fledgling media technology and services provider Emotive announced an even newer spin on the ringtone phenomenon, stating it will introduce a mobile prototype of its Push Ringer at next week's IMS World Forum event. The Push Ringer, already available via Skype's VoIP service, effectively turns the traditional ringtone mode inside-out, enabling callers to push outgoing ringers to the receiving handset in place of the subscriber's pre-set tone. If the recipients like what they hear, they may purchase the clip for their own phones.

For years we've heard that ringtones represent the quintessence of mobile phone personalization, so the gradual move away from conventional ringtones into ringbacks and now push ringers suggests a significant shift in the way consumers view mobile content as a whole. If ringtones are about the individual, then ringbacks and push ringers are about the group: No longer is the general thinking "Dig how unique my phone is," but rather "Listen to this clip--this is music you should hear." Call it social networking or just old-fashioned word-of-mouth, but either way it's a conscious effort by the consumer to share with friends and family a new favorite song or an old favorite band--perhaps at the expense of a ringtone with deep personal meaning. It also forces consumers to program ringbacks and push ringers with widespread appeal to pique the interest of as many callers as possible.

If all this sounds like something that was once the imperative of a DJ or a record store clerk…well, it should. In an era when commercial radio playlists are more limited than ever before and record stores are an endangered species, the new mobile music paradigm isn't about personalization--it's about recommendation. In the growing absence of traditional promotional channels, ringbacks and ring pushers are our most effective means of exposing the music we like to the people we know. Thanks to mobile, we are all tastemakers. - Jason