Dissecting Caller Ringback tones

Heard about the latest "Caller Ringback tones" from Maxis Hotlink?

Introduced sometime mid this year, it's a service which replaces the standard connecting "toot toot" tone callers hear on the phone with customised music/sound effects while waiting for the other Hotlink customer to be connected.

No doubt that this would open up another avenue for personalisation (and perhaps, trickle more moo-lah into fat telco pockets), it isn't necessarily what it's jazzed up to be - certainly not from the caller's perspective.

A snipped of the radio advertisement underlines a fundamental flaw of the concept:

Girl 1: Why do you keep calling and hanging up?

Girl 2: I keep calling and hearing this wierd "Mooo" sound. I think something's wrong with my phone.

Over many years, we have all become accustomed to hearing the conventional ringback "toot toot" tone when making a call. Replacing this with something else will add confusion since it goes against our expectations. Thus, we have Girl 2 asking "is something wrong with my phone?". More worryingly, she could've even assumed that other person been transformed to a cow!
Looking at the bigger picture, it is actually pretty cruicial that caller ringback tones be standardised internationally.

Working with Americans and Asians alike, I often hear them complaining about how ringback tones are confusing. Asians who are generally familiar with "toot...(delay)... toot" signifying "unreachable/engaged" get confused in the States where it means "connecting".

Obviously, people will make mistakes, learn and over time, adapt to caller ringback tones. However, this shouldn't stop us from questioning the intrinsic value the technology brings to us.

Is it worth the effort?

I'm back and *almost* new

I'm sick of saying "I'm back".

So if I disappear again without prior notice, I'll pre-approve you to sneak up behind me, tap my shoulder and deliver a bone crunching, teeth shattering punch (or slap, whichever suits you). ;-)
The truth is, I haven't been able to actually get myself to sit in front of the pc long enough to actually revamp the blog.

After over a year of blogging, I felt the blog was getting old, and I was getting bored (talk about short attention span!), so I decided it needed a makeover, some sort of fresh injection. I never got down to it though.

Unfortunately, work and social life also caught up with me, and so it became hard to jog with so many things latching onto my shoulder. The blog had to take a back seat, since real-time events require urgent attention (as any Warcrafter would attest).

... I'm back now. Things are slightly more relaxed at the moment since I've been out of work for nearly 2 weeks now, recovering from dengue fever. I've given this blog a "fresher" look from one of blogger's excellent templates - it's a quick fix and at least it gets me in the mood for blogging once again.

I've also decided to slightly alter the focus of the blog. Occasionally, there'll be my usual rants on my life, etc. But this time around, I intend to blog more on my thoughts relating to human factors and user interactions. It's closely related to what I do in real life, so I expect to have quite some bits to pen down from my day to day work.

Meanwhile, I need to find a home for some of my photos so I can reference them from this site. Any recommendations, anyone?