Ring-back tones to carry adverts Wannabe telecommunications company Jajah is planning to replace the ringing tone with recording advertisements, when the user wants them, with the revenue split 50-50 between customer and operator. Jajah's main business is connecting calls which are set up using their website, but users who sign up to the new advertising …
Without hearing the phone ring; you have no actual idea how long it is taking to make the connection. Therefore if the advertiser wants 30s advert... whose to say your connection wont take 30s? or more?
Sooner or later we will all become dependant upon what the advertisers want us to read. Perhaps like Rex Mundi (Rankin fame) we will learn to sleep with eyes open; and appear to listen without actually hearing (something politicans learnt a long time ago).
That if they take off, they become known as a Binks advert. Pointless, Irritating and you just want to shut it up but if the phone belongs to someone else you have to wait for them to answer it, at which point you get to hear them talking at the top of their voice about such interesting topics like what Craig did last night, or their plans to go out and get shit faced, or what happened on x-factor this weekend.
They called themselves "Jajah" are they on crack ? I would not have named my company after the most hated Star Wars Character of all time.
However I find it unsurprising that a company with that name sake would institute a policy that annoys the crap of me just like the real Jaja did for the entire first film.
Muppets
The entire world waits for MS Windows and MS Office to start up everyday, couldn't they do the same. No, becuase people would expect the startup of the OS and Software to intentionally be set at some convenient ad showing time.
Making calls over VoIP (unlike jajah), or even Callback (like jajah) is dirt cheap so why opt in for advertising?
It appears to me that jajah has no paying customers and is trying really hard to make some money on those who make free calls, or maybe they try to get some more investors interested in this "brillian" idea.
Going to be interesting, trying to create and sell audio ads which are not designed to be listened to all the way thru. And if the ad is more interesting than the call I'm making, is there an option to continue it... :-)
@'What about microsoft' AC - Microsoft already has ads in their boot-up time, if you hadn't noticed. There is a MS logo running...
As if advertising isn't ubiquitous enough already..
To paraphrase Bill Hicks, "If any of you work in Marketing, kill yourselves".
This article is spot on when it says that time is better spent collecting our thoughts than listening to yet more pointless advertising.
Still no-one is forced to listen to this stuff yet, and like Paul, I will probably simply excommunicate any friends that opt in to such a silly idea. Just another avenue of corporate propeganda for me to avoid.
or using contract minutes on one mobile to call your other one and get a cut of the revenue for a call that was 'inclusive' in the first place.
yeah i can see this lasting..
or not, at least not the revenue splitting model, hell I'd have a mobile especially for this, set on silent and in a desk drawer. then put the number on the net.
????
profit?
When will these marketers learn the thing that the market wants the LEAST right about now is more freaking ads! Ads in Email, Ads when your phone rings, ads on el reg, ads on the TV, ads on the radio (Pop Music radio is 100% ads, the only form of "entertainment" where the product is adverts!), ads on the street, ads on the cab, ads on the bus, heck, people even pay to wear ads on a T-shirt.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
Well, in theory, I guess it'd be OK to save some money on the phone bill (which is how I'd view it rather than viewing it as "making money"...) In reality, I expect it won't be long until the ads are like "Hello.... buy my product!" (making it sound like the other party has picked up, THEN pitching some product). They already do that here in the states when I'm on hold (calling tech support lines or the like).. instead of hold music (which I could put on speaker and ignore until it broke off with a voice) I end up getting hold music that breaks like every minute "Hello... please stay on the line, your call is important". Ugh!
If things continue the way they are going, we'll have RFID brain implants so that the buggers can beam ads directly into your brain 24/7 but these will initially be introduced as an anti-terrorist measure.
I predict that the suicide rate will then skyrocket (I know I'd shoot/drink/drug myself to death before I'd let them near my head)
George Orwell was in the right ballpark when he wrote 1984 but I think its going to be much much worse....
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
