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

Re:Ringtones are one of the dumbest things to pay

[suso]

And there is nothing wrong with drinking 64 oz of mountain dew and needing to refill it?

Of course, says me, who just took 6 20 oz bottles of Dr. Pepper(tm) to the recycling bin.

Techies drink carbonated drinks in great quantities, Other people download expensive ringtones in great quantities. Take your pick.

Re:i rule

[dazedNconfuzed]

i rule?

If you have to ask, you don't.

You Americans are cute

[Anonymous Coward]

even the kids in Eastern Europe, heck even Africa, were at this childish state of cell-phone euphoria some five years ago. Man, you guys are so much behind the rest of the world on this it's not even funny.

Re:Ringtones are one of the dumbest things to pay

[suso]

And will make you have to piss 10000 more times a day. I've been drinking a lot more water over the past few months and have found that it really goes right through you. Of course, I guess that's better than the junk that stays inside when you drink pop.

Computer Programmer: A biomechanical device that turns caffinated or carbonated beverage into computer code.

Re:What are they going to hear?

[DaveAtFraud]

Unfortunately, I must have nuked the original GIF. You may be able to find it at the Dilbert web site: www.dilbert.com. I'm fairly certain about the date (7/4/03) but Scott Adams needs to work on his hand-writing because the 4 (at least I think its a 4) is pretty ugly.