A New York Times article (registration required) talks about the growth in the worldwide market for ringtones (alternate ring sounds for mobile phones).
Most new cellphones have the ability to download alternate ringtones, which typically sell for $2-3 each. I've never understood the appeal of them--it's a phone, for crying out loud--all I want to know is that it is ringing. I don't need a long, noisy dirge to let me know that.
Nonetheless, I'm clearly a curmudgeon when it comes to this particular little piece of IT gadgetry. Worldwide, ringtones are now a $3 billion dollar market, and growing fast as more phones are bought with this capability. In a small bit of good news, perhaps Americans are a bit more sane than the rest of the world when it comes to this stuff, as the U.S. market for ringtones lags behind Europe and Asia.
The ringtone industry is in a major lather right now because the newest cellphones have polyphonic capability (meaning they can play snippets of real songs, rather than a tinny melody of the song). The music industry is gearing up to license huge chunks of their music archives as ringtones, including some downright foul and/or insulting recordings.
There is a larger issue behind all this. Who could have predicted even three years ago that a major, multi-billion dollar market would have emerged around ringtones? As dumb as they may be, the ringtone industry is creating jobs and revenue streams across whole industries.
It's creative destruction at work. Yes, some of our factory and low level office jobs are being outsourced to low wage countries. But whole new industries are replacing them. Would you rather work in the music industry as a ringtone and license manager or work in a satellite TV call center making cold calls? Which kind of job would be better for your region?
Trying to preserve the jobs and economic development strategies of the past is an exercise in futility. Communities need to be looking ahead, and planning in a futures context, instead of the context of what worked well in 1970.