Humanity has poor taste. Correction: The worst. For proof, look no further than the person sitting next to you … That’s right, wait until their phone rings and blasts the latest Shakira mega-hit (Full respect to bf Gerard Piqué. Visca Barça!).
Coupled with humanity’s bad taste, is humanity’s uncountable urge to spend money on said bad taste, and in the case here, booty-shakin’, Colombian-sung god-awful ringtones.
Waka Waka indeed.
Thing is, and here’s a little gem they don’t teach you at business school: where there is bad taste, there is money.
Usually, a bunch of it.
See, the ringtone business has for years been a cash cow for mobile operators and the cellular ecosystem, but as with everything smartphone, ringtones have to smarten up as well.
A new Israeli-based startup called Pops sees new smartened-up tones for Android notifications as a commercial opportunity and is launching a landgrab for users’ lock screens.
Pops, which comes in packages, are installed via an Android app. They basically let users customize their email, SMS, Facebook, and Twitter notifications, as well as their ringtones. Packages include sounds effects and music, as well as visuals such as videos and animations. Check out the video at the bottom of the post to see what they look like.
Pops is featuring only free content right now (yes, I view Pops packages as ‘content’ as opposed to plain old ‘tones’), but for-pay material is sure to be introduced soon enough.
My jabs aside, Pops is actually a nifty app that will surely put a bunch of smiles on lots of people’s faces. Of course, their friends will chuckle the first couple of times, then move swiftly to the ‘If I hear Waka Waka one more god-damn time, I’m going to lodge this ashtray in your left eye socket!’ stage. Friendship is priceless.