I was honored or, I should write, honoured, to participate in the WebTV Takeover event put on by the good folks at Chinwag last night.   I like the format of these events.  They charge a reasonable fee (about 25 or 30 GBP) and provide snacks and drinks for the first hour or two.  That encourages mingling beforehand.  Also, since the attendees are doing this on their own time and often at their own expense, they are much more engaged than your typical conference panel with bored onlookers constantly checking their Blackberries (including yours truly).  The discussion was more than 90 minutes long and wide-ranging covering delivery mechanisms, business models, content, net neutrality and even whether Americans are fat.  All in all, the issues here are very similar to the ones in the US.  Some key differences include the vibrance and prominence of the independent production community here vs the US, the greater concentration of ISP market penetration here and public funding of the TV via a license.   The major broadcasters, the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV all have broadband VOD products that allow consumers to catch-up on their viewing, which the US broadcasters have started to do but not in as big of a way.

Paidcontent UK covered it here (with terrible picture of me — Rafat, you have to train your stringers on how to use cameras!) and here as did Eaon Pritchard, Alan Patrick, and Fiona Blamey.

Apple made a slew of announcements today about new, lower iPhone pricing, new iPods and traction of the iTunes store.  One of the announcements that got relatively little attention but could be disruptive in its own way was the support of ringtones via the iTunes store.  For an additional $0.99 (on top of the price of the song) you’ll be able to create your own ringtone from 500,000 odd tracks that they’ve licensed for this purpose.   This is better for consumers in three ways: 

1. The total price of $1.98 is lower than what most carriers charge.
2. 500,000 tracks means a lot of choice compared to what is readily available on a carrier’s deck.  I don’t know what those numbers are but I’m guessing the carriers’ decks don’t offer ‘mid – long’ tail content as ringtones.
3. Consumers have more choice as to what part of the song to select for the ringtone as opposed to being forced to use the part that someone else chose for you.

There has been software like Xingtone that has allowed consumers to create their own ringtones from music they already own.  A newer, web-based service, Phonezoo, is what I call ‘youtube for ringtones’ whereby consumers can create, upload and share ringtones that they’ve created. 

These new services could be disruptive for carriers and middleman ringtone distributors especially given the slowdown in the overall ringtone market.