Short History of Cellphone Ringtones

RobotWisdom writes "This week's New Yorker magazine includes an interesting short history of cellphone ringtones, including statistics on their (huge) profitability worldwide. My favorite quote: 'I spent three days of productive work time listening to polyphonic ringtone versions of speed metal, trying to find exactly the ringtone that expressed my personality with enough irony and enough coolness that I could live with it going off ten times a day. In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off-- what are they going to hear?'"

Comments

A shorter history of ringtones

[ackthpt]

A shorter history of ringtones:

Kewl

Neat

Cute

Distracting

Bothersome

Highly Annoying

Obnoxious

Grating

"Hello, is the proctologist available? I need something removed from somewhere."

coming soon: ringtones with thx 5.1 surround, so everyone can enjoy your taste in interruption melodies!

The sound of silence

[spywarearcata.com]

"In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off--what are they going to hear?"

Among polite people, or, failing that, with a mobile phone jammer enabled--nothing.

Re:The sound of silence

[lukewarmfusion]

At the very most, they might hear my phone's vibration mode.

In college, we used to make a game of calling people in class to see if they remembered to turn their ringers off. Paul lost pretty much every time, rewarding us with a disruptive version of the Notre Dame fight song.

In an important meeting, my phone is on silence mode - no ringer at all. If I didn't do that, I'd never get anything done.

Meetings...

[darkstar949]

They are going to hear that you have too much time on you hands...

I'll take a stab at it

[Swamii]

I spent three days of productive work time listening to polyphonic ringtones...in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off-- what are they going to hear?

"You're fired."

Albatross

[linuxwrangler]

Sometimes I feel like John Cleese yelling, "It's f***ing seabird f***ing flavored".

I want my stereo to play music.

I don't need my phone to play a bad rendition of some tune - I want it to ring.

I want my beer to taste like, um, beer - not razzberries, lemons, etc.

Maybe I've become an old coot. But is sure saves me money.

BTW, I selected the "falling rockets" built in ring on my Nokia. Everyone hates that tone (my wife says, "your phone is crying") so I've never heard that ring on another phone. Perfect - I never have to do the "self-frisk" whenever a phone rings.