Market of Video Ringtones Is Emerging?
by
on February 01, 2007,
Video content is expanding vigorously - it can be found both on hard drives of our computers and on video sharing websites online. Evidently, the next stage for it should be going mobile. Only recently we mentioned Mobrl - mobile video website for users to share videos via their cell phones without their PCs.
Vringo - the new service among those officially launched at Demo 2007 offers a new way to enhance your mobile experience. The idea is rather simple: as Vringo user you choose what video clip will play on your buddy's phone when you call him or her. So with Vringo and your own imagination you will know how to amuse your friends.
So how does it actually work? Well, first of all we need to clarify one thing: you will need to have your friends among Vringo users - being their alone does not make any sense at all. Besides, it is necessary to have Vringo software installed on your phone.
The website already has a nice collection of video ringtones (Vringos): both user-generated clips and licensed content. Sure, you will need to pay if you want to use some of the licensed clips.
It is also possible to upload your own videos instead of using those already available: you can use your computer or your cell phone to do it. After receiving a Vringo from you your buddy will be able to forward it to someone else.
But we still need to test the application - currently you can only join beta testers but that must not last for long. So we'll have to wait and see. But what I find particularly interesting is capacity of video ringtones market, given the impressive $5 billion global market of ringtones.
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Bighorn
kalipso
Mav
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
That is totally awesome! I cant wait to get going, just as soon as my friends get the software too. Do you know if Phone Sherpa is going to expand in this direction also? They seem to have caught the wave here on the west coast for ringtones and wallpapers.
What a cool idea. I’m just imaging the sorts of clips I could have play on some of my friends phones. Shame that both parties need the specific software.
I guess every company dealing with mobile content will soon try to expand in this direction - I can see even from these comments that this will be very popular. But another thing is that the technology only seems to be simple - they have already applied for 18 patents. Possibly someone is developing an alternative right now to be launched soon. But chances are Vringo will preserve its monopoly for some time at least.
Let me understand- every time my friends decide to update their clips it gets pushed to my phone? And are they going to pay for my data fees as well?
I have no idea on that, to tell you the truth. But it seems no one cares about money paid for any traffic, I guess all the new applications are developed for unlimited plans
I’ll try to contact Vringo about this, stay tuned.
Good stuff. I’m always looking for new or better ways to share mobile video. This just prooves that no matter what the phone companies do to slow down file and bandwidth sharing, the information will be free.
YouTube must be near-ready to release some similar features, no?
I think YouTube is just getting into the concept of mobile video and this may be over the top for them. YouTube is also successful because it is a mass market product, while Vringo, or LiveTone, http://www.livetone.com , another company recently launched and has a free video tone player and a similar offering to vringo (user-generated video tones)are focussing on a niche market. They are niche market products because the offering only supports a select group of phones.