Today David Pogue wrote a piece in his Free column in the NYtimes titled : A Baffling New Phenomenon: Customized Ringtones.
You know… cause CUSTOMIZED ringtones have only been in existence since the iPhone came out and thats why its a NEW PHENOMENA! Are you kidding me?
OK first let me address why customized ringtones are hot (welcome to 3 years ago):
Basic human nature. How stupid would you be if you said “I dont understand why people want to paint there house different colors. The price of paint is expensive!” Ya, because to me thats how stupid you sound. People have custom ringtones because they want to personalize there phone. Sure you may not understand it but its just human nature to want to make things your own. It happens more with youth… with things like cool rims on putting stickers on your laptop… or hell painting your shoes… whatever. We are all forced to conform to using the same things so personalizing them in some way is just human nature.
Next I want to address something else you said.
Now, I realize that it’s easy to get ringtones onto your phone (or iPhone) for free, using unauthorized techniques of varying degrees of difficulty. Thousands of people do ringtones that way, but I’m not even going there.
WTF you talking about willis? If I play the guitar and sing and transfer that to my phone via bluetooth how is that an “unauthorized method” ???. If I know how to make my own ringtones from my own music (that I paid for) and I upload them to my phone how is that an “unauthorized method” ???
Lastly you talk about the ringtone industry like its just totally lining the pockets of fatcat executives (which I agree with) YET you fail to promote and of the ways in which you can make your own ringtones or send free ringtones to your phone.
So you wrote the book on the iPhone and MacOSX….. Good for you. But I think you look pretty stupid in this article.
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Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2415 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 64 comments… read them below or add one }
Writing seems to be easier then thinking these days.
Yes, Pogue has been annoying the hell out of me ever since his days as a technoignoramus for macworld magazine. Really irritated me seeing his ignorant drivel in that magazine, how the hell did he get promoted to the NY times? He doesnt know a damn thing about technology and gets by writing articles that my mom (who is technically illiterate) could write.
I guess having knowledge of technical things and something informed and useful to say is not in any way a criteria for evaluating people for getting hired as tech writers. The guy is a total bozo.
Nice rant Shoe lol. I’m not in the ringtone market at all so I wont comment too much on them but good points. Obviously if you can make your own ringtones… I can’t see how that’s unauthorized.
On the subject of people writing high profile articles on things they don’t wholeheardetly know about, that annoys me to. When somebody writes on something I know alot about and get blatent things wrong yet ignorantly rant about it. It’s like how do they even get where they are.
“painting your shoes”
People do that? lol. Nice hate post, now he can feel your wrath when this article ranks for his name.
Writing seems to be easier then thinking these days.
David Pogue is a terrible thinker and a good writer, whereas Shoemoney is a good thinker and a terrible writer.
A million monkey’s with a million type writers ….. thats pretty the definition of the Internet now. I too have seen people with painted shoes, painted back packs are the best though either way fire hazard !
P.S. shoe the top link is broke
although this could be intentional
whereas Shoemoney is a good thinker and a terrible writer
True lol. Grammar doesn’t count for much for me though in terms of real intelligence, I hate bookworms and grammar bullies who pick you up on every little grammar mistake as if they’re a genius.
Hey, SHOE.
sorry to post this in here off topic and all, but I thought maybe you’d see it.
i just sent you a message via your contact form on this blog, regarding another post “fast fingers = fast money”… came across some stuff you might be interested in… check that email.
I agree with you… cus ringtones have been here for a while.
But now for stg completely different – why don’t you make the upper left corner logo clickable? I tricks me every time
It’s probably not clickable because the logo is the shoemoney writing and the big S as 1 image so it would be clickable right near the ad and the nav aswell. Should slice the image up, make it two.
Some people just think within their little framework of the world and just can’t seem to step outside of that…
Add Pogue to the ever-growing list of people who have no idea about what they’re saying
For what it’s worth, my earlier comment wasn’t intended as an insult. I’d rather be successful than a good writer.
or lay a clear gif over top =)
I’ve never really got into ring tones. If my phone did anything but the normal ring, I’d never hear it.
Got to agree with you on the writer though, I would never work for the New York Times – rubbishy paper. And they let any idiot write for them. You don’t need a scrap of talent at all.
And it’s true, writers don’t think anyway – that’s why barely any newspapers are sold.
Welcome popular media. The writers with the largest audiences tend to get things wrong an invoke fear in regular Joe smoe’s for no good reason.
I agree. It’s pretentious to think that only 14 year olds only use ringtones or want custom tones on their cellphone. Sure, I’d like to have custom tones on my phone but considering my phone sits on vibrate most of the day I’m going to wait until someone make a vibe-tone in my pocket!
It seems he’s completely off-base when it comes to the usefulness of ringtones but he may be close to the mark where the cost can be so prohibitive. Apple IS cheaper than some of the alternatives. But still, they didn’t invent the ringtone.
While quite amusing at times, Pogue is simply a tech writer. I tend to think tech writers are techies who weren’t quite geeky enough to make it elsewhere.
With that said, I’m too cheap for a good phone and I’m could care less what the ringtone is. I’m a horrible consumer when it comes to buying little gadgets.
By the way, CatherineL, you must have the exact same subscribed feeds list as me, seems like I’m seeing you everywhere
I agree, looks like a stupid article he made just to try and get printed.
Great counter points Shoemney. I also use custome ringtones because the parts of the songs I want aren’t available to buy at online stores.
Jesus that guy is a douche.
Yeah he is.
Dudes, dudes–you are being WAY TOO HARSH here.
The gist of this post is, “Pogue is an idiot because he refers to the ringtone phenomenon as NEW in the headline.”
OK, well, guess what? I don’t write the headlines. I NEVER referred to this phenomenon as new. In fact, I actually referred to the ANNUAL sales of ringtones, so OBVIOUSLY I know it’s not new.
If I could change the stupid headline, I would.
As for my reference to hacker tools that let you get ringtones for free: The entire column was in reference to a single subject, which I identified up front:
COMMERCIAL POP SONGS.
Not songs you write yourself. Not MP3 files or MIDI files. COMMERCIAL POP SONGS.
All 4 major carriers require you to buy them for $2.50 to $3. (And yes, I realize that there are a handful of smartphones that let you use any MP3 files you want. That’s great, but they’re the exception.)
And if you think that $3 for 20 seconds is a reasonable price… well, then I don’t think I’m the idiot!
–Pogue
i would like to see him respond here.
Hey, maybe he can write next about Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton and about what a baffling new phenomenon it is that they’re so popular, I still can’t figure that one out.
I like the NY times but having a tech writer that openly admits to knowing less about tech than a 14 year old does not bode well.
Now send some link juice to this post so it ranks for his name.
Your article itself isnt bad but the headline doesnt fit the article. It should have been something like “A baffling new phenomena: Apple only takes an arm for custom ringtones instead of and arm and a leg” though thats kinda long.
Also there are ways to get any song, genre doesnt matter, onto a phone as a ringtone though Id think it would be a bit too complicated for a times article.
I actually like Pogue, he usually aims his tech coverage at a very green/newbie audience and it does look like he missed the mark here. He wrote a great book on Windows Vista though and he knows that OS inside and out – very thorough there, so I’m surprised at this.
Do you have an iphone shoe? You cant just take clips and make them as ringtones (easily) because Apple wants you to buy their ringtones. that is why people use “unauthorized methods”
But yeah, this guy is a total moron
I guess everyone reads shoemoney these days
Holy shit, can you make anyone more stupid because they were addressing a less technical audience in their writing? Nice linking to Nextpimp though.
I read things like this all the time in local papers…. writers who don’t know jack!
You need to have words with your editor then.
Don’t tell anonymous to buy stuff. You should know better.
It’s great that you responded to this, I think I speak for everyone when saying thanks for clearing things up.
It’s really kind of funny in a not funny way how big name media chooses their clueless technical columnists. I’m old so I don’t care much about custome ring tones … but I get so p*ssed ata some idiot telling me what i can’t do that I might download a couple andstall them later just out of spite.
i aslo find it so humorous that he thinks this is new .. or, with apologoes, even when Shoe thinks ring tones are new … the ring tone craze was sweeping digitally developed countries like Japan 6 years ago, not the three years ago that the US finally woke up to the fact the cell phone system was analog antiquated and the rest of the world had passed the US by.
I guess Pogue is lucky his daddy didn’t spell it Pouge … any infantryman can tell you how worthless a Pogue is LoL
That NY times Article is really crap and too long.This editors simply write anything what they like we need not read or care about them.
Is the USA behind the UK by about 5 years? My phone can record anything and play it as a ringtone, and the phone cost £20 from Tesco, that’s $40 folks. You just press record, hold it near the radio, and you’ve got any tune you like on there. And its only a Sagem.
Is anybody going to be suing MS for providing these hacking tools for making ringtones in unauthorized techniques? I wrote an article for the absolute newbie on how to create ringtones with Windows Movie Maker. (No link though, because my comments always seem to be marked as spam).
As Mr. Notebook says, sometimes you don’t want the section of the song that they’re selling as your ringtone, so you need to make your own…
They are better known as graduates from the school of Google Journalism. Just make google searches and write a article without understanding the reality or the impact it will have on people. The world has a shortage of good quality technical writers. Most of them are idiots .
This guy is a moron
First it was a full blog post, next it was a subtle, link plug. I have to ask… what is your involvement with this milliondollarwiki?
Man, you slammed that cat. I love the Internet. You probably have more readers than him. Great post!
I think you and shoe missed david’s point. “Unauthorized methods” means methods not generally endorsed by your carrier, which expects you to pay it if you want to add a ringtone to your phone. He wasn’t talking about the source of the music (illegal downloads or you playing your guitar), he was talking about the methods for putting them onto your phone.
Shoe do you think it is ridiculous that a lot of phone companies charge you $2.50 to rent a 30 second piece of a song for 90 days? I think david had a good point there.
I doubt thats really him.
I agree with Pogue about how ridiculous the price of ring tones are, but let’s not forget that that different people have different priorities. So while it might sound stupid to me, it might sound great for others.
I just truly believe that this world has become a superficial world; I think there are more comments on this subject than on important issues out there.
WAKE UP PEOPLE!
I went to the recomended ring tone site, I couldn’t download a free ringtone.
Lol i wont be shocked if north america is this far behind…
perfect timing
I wonder if music licensing to the consumer is going to change. If they will be legally restricted to “methods of use” for a song they purchase.
My perspective on Apple charging for the ringtone is essentially paying for the service and easy accessibility of the iTunes songs. You aren’t necessarily paying for the ringtone itself, but for the conversion and implementation. And then they cosy up to the music industry execs and share that revenue, making more deals.
And Apple probably has much higher margins on ringtone sales for music already purchased.
All very interesting though. I understand why Shoe would make these observations based on past ringtone legalities. But I wonder if those legalities aren’t changing. Pogue’s thoughts seem nieve — like someone that only just started to explore the ringtone industry through iTunes first, assuming that Apple’s methods and charging are de facto standard. OR he has an inside track on the industry and legalities of how it WILL be very soon. Not how it was in the recent past.
Agreed – but do you not think he was maybe just being paid to promote the iphone!?
Hahaha – he could just take his name out of the article and make it look like a googlebomb.. whatever that is?!
Pogue covers a lot of territory and does a great job bringing fairly complicated tech info to a general audience. He’s also a nice guy.
Calling him a dumbshit is dumb shit.
Having no interest in ringtones cheap, expensive or homemade, I can’t comment on this story, though.
Hahaha. You totally ripped this guy to shreds.
Good stuff.
I guess you missed the comment above stating that Pogue didn’t write the headline.
Editors who know less that reporters do that.
Surely if you read the full million dollar wiki post, you’d know what Shoe’s involvement is?
look at the comment above you;)
Ya true actually writing articles on britney/paris is better option.We can simply say snoop latest hot news and write what we like.This editor who wrote bood books later might have made some celebrity blog.
wow cool, i like to have such mobile phone, is that possible to use in India?.I heard many such tools are there but inbuilt is always good.
Haha i totally agree with that. You got him owned.
completely agree with you.
I wrote a quick guide on how to make your own ringtones from songs you already have. Why pay $3?
I really liked TMZs coverage of Lindsay Lohan in court yesterday. She was having a complete meltdown!
I almost felt badly for her.