many people are infatuated with ringtones, but you know much history ringtones itself?
The first commercial mobile phone with ring tones was Japanese NTT DoCoMo Digital Mova N103 Hyper by NEC, sold on May 1996. It had a few preset songs in MIDI format. On September 1996, IDO, the current au, sold Digital Minimo D319 by Denso. It was the first mobile phone which a user could input an original melody, rather than the preset songs. These phones proved to be popular in Japan. Kētai Chakumero Do-Re-Mi Book (ケータイ着メロ ドレミBOOK, "Mobile Ringtones Do-Re-Mi Book"), a book published on July 1998 introducing the "notes" of popular songs sold more than 3.5 million copies.
The first downloadable mobile ring tone service was created and delivered in Finland in autumn 1998 when a Finnish mobile operator Radiolinja (today Elisa) started their service called Harmonium. Invented by Vesa-Matti Pananen. the Harmonium contained both tools for individuals to create monophonic ring tones and a mechanism to deliver them over-the-air (OTA) via SMS to a mobile handset. On November 1998, Digitalphone Groupe, the current SoftBank Mobile, started the similar service in Japan.
The service concept spread quickly in Europe and Asia and developed into a multi-billion dollar industry.[3] A ring tone service was one of the very first successful m-commerce services, with social media features like composing, sharing, and rating ring tones. The Harmonium also quickly created a market for high-quality professional ring tones and commercial ring tone libraries.
Truetones (or real tones), which are often excerpts from pop songs, have become popular as ring tones. The first truetone service was started by au on December 2002. My Gift to You by Chemistry was the first song to be distributed as a truetone.
The rise of video games has also contributed to the popularity of ring tones. On August 5, 2006, the BBC described "free ring tones" as a dangerous search term, because of the risk of malware and other malicious websites.
By 2005, ring tones generated more than $2 billion in annual worldwide revenues.
Sales and marketing of ring tones is a prime example of vertical telecommunication convergence.
