The reason why ring tones took off in the first place was that they offered mobile phone owners the chance to download a piece of music or a comedy snippet that made it easy to identify which phone was theirs, and avoid confusion. It was also an opportunity to make a statement about personal taste, and show the world around you what kind of a person you were.
Perhaps the most popular ring tone ever was the Crazy Frog, which spawned an entire album of music, as well as numerous games and even children’s toys. It was immensely popular because at the time it was the most unusual product on the market, and offered people something that they had never had before.
However, Crazy Frog became something of a victim of its own success. People quickly grew tired of the tone, and found that it was an ever present source of irritation in their life. At one time, it is thought that almost a quarter of all phones in the UK had that particular ring tone available on them.
While the Crazy Frog may have been the end of the mass ring tone phenomenon, it gave birth to a new world of personalisation. Many artists released their music and comedy for use as ring tones, and this has led to a much wider variety of things being available to really suit all tastes when it comes to the type of music that people want to add to their phone and then use as a text message alert or ring tone.
As well as having access to entire songs in MP3 format through their music collection it is now possible to find almost any piece of music in a special ring tone format that has been trimmed down to only include the most immediately obvious part of the music.
People no longer need to download ring tones, as there are alternatives available, however for sheer convenience, and value, they still make sense when it comes to personalising your mobile phone.