Free New Order Ringtones Via Bluetooth

Net Imperative has a story up on it's website, New Order promos album with free ringtones.

This is going to work by offering the tones via InfraRed or Bluetooth from advertising material supplied by a company called Hypertag. I've mentioned Hypertag a few times before, especially relating to an interactive ad I saw at Moorgate station.

The New Order ads will be at HMV in Manchester, and London's Oxford Street. As I work practically next door to an HMV on Oxford Street, I'll be able to test out how it works exactly. The ads are due to go up a week before the new album is launched on the 28th March.

Stephen Morris from New Order said, "The convergence of music and mobile is a hugely important development in the way that people consume music; being the first band to hand out free music clips direct to mobile means we are in the vanguard of this industry shift."

I'm not sure if they are the first band to do this, but they are certainly one of the most well known. He is certainly right about the mobile music convergence though. The phone manufacturers must be looking at Apple's iPod sales enviously and realising that the basic functionality is already available in their devices. They just need to get the user experience right.

2005 will be the year of mobile and music!