I think the top two most successful marketing schemes in the past fifty years are bottled water and ringtones.
Bottled water is amazing. Americans buy about 28 billion bottles of water per year. In doing so, we pay extra money for something we already get out of the tap.
The second is an even bigger scam – ringtones. Cellphone companies have convinced their customers to pay up to $3.00 or more for songs (really small pieces of songs) that they generally already own in their music collection. Wireless providers have so far gotten away with crippling the phone you own by locking down the software so that you can’t load your own song (or piece thereof) onto your own hardware. They do this so you pay more for a ring tone than you do the whole song. Ingenious!
Not for me thank you. But what is a person who wants a customized ringtone to do? Well now that person (um, me) can use Myxertones. Upload your own song, choose which section you want as a ringtone, and they’ll send it to you via text message.
I’ve got my ringtone now. Sweet.