Once You Pop, You Can’t Stop: Introducing The Ringle (Seriously)

If you thought that Universal’s recent forays into songs licensed to voicemail messages and land-line ringtones were about as far as they’d go as far as kinda-silly ways to get in on the music-on-phones business, well, take a gander at the ringle, coming to a store near you this fall from Universal and the three other major labels. Boy Genius explains:

Universal Music Group and the major labels are about to begin rolling out something called a “RINGLE.” You know, like a single? Except this will be 3 songs packaged together with a ringtone and wallpaper image for your cell phone. The truly idiotic part? These will be physical shipped goods that will be stocked in retailers across the country. Wal-Mart and Best Buy have already jumped on board to start carrying RINGLES. If you break down the cost of 3 songs on iTunes, a typical ringtone, and wallpaper, you get around $6.00. RINGLES will sell in stores for $5.98, but will most likely be on sale and discounted to around $4.00-$4.50. While this is a little bit lower than the traditional digital copies, we still haven’t been told how the consumer will actually be able to transfer the ringtones and wallpapers to their handset. If they’re using some sort of short-code and not bypassing a carrier, then this could be one of the stupidest things we’ve seen. Nevermind the fact they’re going ass-backwards and reverting from a digital product to a physical product that must be printed, packaged, shipped, and stocked.

Ah, so this is why Universal decided to hold back from that iTunes ringtone maker–this plan sounds almost as foolproof as Personics. Sideloaded ringtones that are expensive and packaged with a bunch of crap I don’t want? Sign me up! Anyway, posters on the Velvet Rope have further details; apparently the “wallpaper”–always the most useless part of a musician’s mobile strategy, unless you’re trying to appeal to 14-year-olds, Samantha Fox fans, or 14-year-old Samantha Fox fans–has been dropped. (Sorry, 14-year-old Samantha Fox fans.) Get ready: They’ll hit stores in October, just in time to not fly off shelves for the holidays. (But we’ll probably make Kate buy one, just to check out how well it doesn’t work.)

(Also–the image? So, so great. Kudos to you, Boy Genius.)

Universal Music NOT pulling out of iTunes. Their answer? A RINGLE! [Boy Genius Report, via The Velvet Rope]