EXTREMELY PERSONAL: Ringbacks, caller tags push personalization to new levels, garner attention from startups

Personalization refers to the way consumers use mobile content as kind of a bumper sticker, telling others who they are and what they think. It won’t be long, though, before users will be placing those bumper stickers on your phone-not theirs.
Ringback tones were the first example of “extended personalization” content, forcing callers to listen to a song of someone else’s choosing while they wait for the user at the other end to pick up the phone. And while they haven’t experienced the hockey-stick uptake ringtones enjoyed, ringbacks continue to steadily capture the attention of mobile users: While Broadcast Music Inc. predicts a decline in U.S. ringtone revenues for the first time this year, the licensing organization in its first-ever ringback projection said Americans will spend $65 million on the music clips this year.
RealNetworks Inc. claims to have found an audience with its CallerTags, an application that allows users to create personalized caller IDs that are displayed on the phone of the person they’re calling. The service can be provisioned to display different IDs based on time of day or the person being called, allowing a salesman, for instance, to appear as “SuperCloser” on a call with colleagues, but as “Red-Hot Romeo” during a late-night conversation with a flame. And they can include video ringers, black-and-white graphics and other content.
“It’s very big with the youth market in Korea,” Analisa Roberts, senior director of partner management of RealNetworks, said of the application. “Even some business people are starting to pick (CallerTags).”
Meanwhile, Emotive Communications Inc. is powering a kind of reverse ringtone for Skype users. The Encino, Calif.-based company is behind Skype’s Ringjacker, which allows users to create their own voice tones or pick from a library of tunes and sound effects. Emotive claims it has seen nearly 2 million downloads of the application since its launch last year, and in April pocketed $7.7 million in a funding round from Warner Music Group and other investors.
Similar to CallerTags, Emotive’s “Push Ringer” can feature audio, video, animations, avatars or Flash files, and can include a clickable link to the Web site of an artist or record label. The company has a mobile prototype for smartphones and is working to make the application available on Java- and BREW-enabled handsets.
“People can download the application for free, and we have advertisements and promotions rolling through” the service, said Emotive CEO Anthony Stonefield, who founded the ringtone storefront Moviso in 1993. “I think the beauty for the record company is that (Push Ringer) will deliver visual, audio and Web impressions.”
Like Emotive, Vringo is looking to advertising dollars to support its extended personalization service. And also like Emotive, the company is backed by some heavy hitters: former AT&T Mobility executive Jim Ryan is a board member, and the company’s content partners include Universal Music Group and Discovery Mobile. And Vringo also is looking to employ its users as its sales force, recommending both the application and premium content with a phone call.
Vringos, as the Israel-based company calls its offering, are video ringtones that are pushed to the phone of the person being called. The company recently closed a $12 million round and is in discussions with carriers around the world, according to founder Jon Medved.
“We’ve taken this sine qua non, quaint mobile experience, which is the phone call, and saying ‘Why don’t we use that and make it richer,'” Medved explained. “We’re allowing you to express yourself by adding this kind of calling card.”
Both Emotive and Vringo are hoping mobile consumers will use their wares to build virtual circles of friends, sharing content and spurring sales of all sorts of content. And both companies face a substantial hurdle in that users must download an application before they can send content or accept mobile goodies from their friends.
But one “national” U.S. carrier has already committed to launching Emotive’s Push Ringer in the next few months, Stonefield said, and many operators around the world are expressing interest. If RealNetworks, Emotive and Vringo are right, the next stage in personalization could be lucrative. “It’s not so much a community (we want users to build), it’s the people on your buddy list; a more intimate subset of your address book,” Stonefield said. “This is my favorite place to be, which is completely on the bleeding edge. We’re toying with things that are two or three years from becoming mainstream.”