Ring back tones are coming to West

Red Herring wrote about ring back tones that are widely popular in Asia. For those of you, who don’t know what it means – ring back tones are the sound you hear while calling to someone and still waiting for them to answer your call. In this case, ring back tones just aren’t dull bleeps instead they can take a shape of any sound, from noise to talking and music. Article elaborates the business model and writes about companies offering such a service. As a reason for all of this, according to Safa Rashtchy, managing director of Piper Jaffray (he was interviewed for the article), this phenomenon is just another extension of accessory craze that has taken especially teenagers by storm. Maybe so, but to me, ring back tones are much more personal than ring tones, you don’t hear them unless you call to someone. This also makes them more private and therefore will eventually differ from ringtones completely.