Despite being 28, having a PhD, a good job and being a pretty sensible and normal kind of a guy, I do like my phone to make silly noises. Ringtones, message alerts – the whole 9. That’s some of the reason I got rid of the iPhone, and why I’ll never have a Samsung phone again. My latest Nokia (6500 slide) lets me set pretty much whatever sound I want for pretty much any action the phone performs, so I’m happy. And from my days on student radio, I have tonnes of ridiculous sounds to use on my phone, which I’m certain brighten up the office for my colleagues. Hmm.
I saw an advert on TV today for Jamster. I’d certainly heard of Jamster before, I mean, they were the ones who proliferated the goddamn Crazy Frog – but never really paid it much attention. But the latest ones made me take note. Apparently they’ll send you applications such as a “lie detector” or “friend tracker”, which presumably need some sort of Java support in order to pretend to do whatever they claim they can do. My gut feeling as a geek is that these apps certainly won’t do what they say they can do. But these pointless apps aren’t Jamster’s main selling point – it’s the ringtones. You can text a number, they send you a ringtone. But pay careful attention to the smallprint. Getting the ringtone subscribes you to a service, which costs no less than £4.50 a week! That’s £234 a year! Far more than most people will even spend on their phone or bill. Crazy.
And it seems, you don’t have to go far to find people who have been ripped off by Jamster. (The particularly concerning thing is – what’s to stop someone subscribing your phone to that service? Nothing, as far as I can see.)
It’s a ridiculous rip off service, but I’m not here to debate that. My real concern is: who would even actually use it? Even with the promise of a free ringtone, I can see no point, whatsoever. Most phones nowadays are equipped with Bluetooth, and even those that aren’t will easily connect to your PC over IR or USB. Bearing in mind that pretty much any sound or song that you may want to use on your phone is merely a download away from the T’Interwebs, why would you need a Jamster service? Why pay £4.50 a week or even accept giving over your mobile number for a free ringtone, to do something that, with a just a little effort, you can do yourself, for free?
I just don’t get it.
On a related note, there’s an interesting article about Jamster and the Crazy Frog here.
There are a lot of comments from people who got duped in to the subscription service, in particular, this one:
Yes I have suffered the same problem, ordered Crazy Frog for my own and my son’s mobile, expecting to pay £3 for it, but nothing else. When my bill arrived it had two further text messages at £3 each.
Why on earth, seriously, would you spend £3 on the Crazy Frog, not once, but TWICE? £6 for the stupid frog? Even if you can’t find it for free yourself, why not buy it once and then transfer it to the other phone? Some people are idiots.
The debate has raged on long and hard for years, but the simple fact of the matter is: currently, Guernsey, a well-developed financial centre of excellence, pumps raw sewage in to the sea – a sea the 2nd biggest market in Guernsey – tourism – relies on. There are many different water users round here – not just boating – where Guernsey is obviously a popular destination – but surfers, kayakers, swimmers, windsurfers, kitesurfers, not to mention casual beach users.
From the latest Surfers Against Sewage newsletter: