Music On Cell Phones

Last night I was told about a great site for buying cell phones online called letstalk.com. So I checked it out and they do seem to have most phones and most carriers, so a lot more options than you typically see. They offer referral bonuses as well. My friend got a free Blackberry Pearl and loves it.

Speaking of mobile phones….I am advising a lot of entrepreneurs to skip the internet phase of their business, meaning trying to get desktop traffic to their web site, and instead focus on mobile applications and mobile web site development. That seems to be where everything is going right now. Google’s mobile search is ready for primetime, Yahoo launches a mobile ad network, GPS-enabled phones are finally arriving in large numbers, video is getting to phones, and on and on.

Today I saw this press release from letstalk.com that shows how much music is making it to cell phones.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 22 /PRNewswire/ — Online wireless retailer LetsTalk today announced the results of a survey that found the music player feature on cell phones isn’t just for teens. The survey shows over 83 percent of music phone purchasers are over the age of 25, and that 55 percent of those 35 years and older are listening to music on their cell phones. Yet, the music they are putting on cell phones isn’t typically coming from carrier offerings.

The music feature on cell phones is becoming more popular with people of all ages — about 63 percent of multimedia cell phone users have listened to music on their phones. Over 50 percent have downloaded 20 or more songs, and 89 percent have downloaded at least four songs to their phones.

Music phone users have several options for acquiring and downloading music to their cell phones, but in spite of the convenience of buying and downloading songs directly from their carrier, only 14 percent of survey respondents said they have done this. Overall, buying music online is popular, with over 60 percent of those polled going this route. While 67 percent of those polled stated they have used a computer to transfer music files to their cell phones from CDs or the Internet.

“Our survey results indicate that consumers are listening to music from their own collection, so virtually any music phone can meet their needs” said Delly Tamer, CEO of LetsTalk. “Customers are making the most of their music phones with cables and memory cards. The industry needs to offer customers a more compelling reason to download songs directly and easily to their cell phones — better prices, easier navigation, faster speeds, exclusive songs, or all of the above.”

I still don’t have a decent RSS reader for my cell phone (although I downloaded Bloglines for Blackberry today, so I’ll try that), and my web connection is still way too slow (can’t wait for T-Mobile to upgrade their network), and I haven’t bought a Blackberry 8800 yet so I’m still missing the GPS and location-based services that I can’t wait to have, so there are still limitations to my using my cell phone for everything. (I still use my 60GB iPod for music and audio books), but I think those limitations will fade over the next 1-2 years and by the time the successor to the Blackberry 8800, the Nokia N95, and the iPhone version 2 or 3 arrive, they will be so useful that I may never need to use a laptop again.