Idolator

Remember those CD single/ringtone hybrids that were saddled with the awful name "ringles"? A post on Coolfer just reminded me that the initial announcement of the format came almost a year ago, but ringle nation doesn't seem to have really taken off: Amazon has 118 results for the search term "ringle," but some of them are just for artists with that name, and many of the listings for the actual ringles themselves only have secondary-market copies available. Not that I'd be surprised that something so ill-advised would die on the vine, but man, that was even quick for the Internet age.

More details on the ringle—the latest semi-harebrained scheme to save the music industry from falling off a cliff—have emerged. Apparently they'll cost between $5.98 and $6.98, and their distribution strategy is marked by the same clear thinking that's been the hallmark of major labels in the digital era: More »

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: More »