A Ringtone That Really Gets Under Your Skin?

Computers & Mobile Technology
A Ringtone That Really Gets Under Your Skin?

TonesBruce on the Etel blog interviews the good doctor about her “Phertones” – ringtones that make you more attractive – “Make of it what you will, but a new site has popped up devoted to the promotion of Pherotones, which are presented as a sort of oddball, audible cousin of pheromones, which naturally you’ll be able to use as ring tones on your cell phone. The site lures us in with the convincing tagline “You’ve heard of Pheromones, now try Pherotones!” and gripping personal testimonials like this one from Derrick of NYC, I wasn’t much of a ladies’ man before Pherotones. Now they call me ‘Mr. Lady’-Link. UPDATE: A Make reader may have confired our suspicion, this is part of an ad campaign. Read the comments for the details.

18 thoughts on “A Ringtone That Really Gets Under Your Skin?

  1. philliptorrone says:

    darrylsmith – excellent work, this is what i suspected and i think you may have just uncovered it. likely the interactive group mckinney silver.

  2. bob11 says:

    There is a fake wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pherotone&action=history

    The captured IP address on the page is easily tracked back to McKinney Silver
    http://bimmer.roadfly.com/bmw/forums/southeast/5319667-1.html
    (look at the info of the IP address for the poster)

  3. mad_scientist says:

    I’m really sorry, but I’m a real scientist, and I can tell you that that is just a bunch of clever marketing people who think they can convince people to drop a few bucks for a worthless ringtone.

    “Pherotones are presently too controversial and too hot for mainstream science. Established scientists, with their cushy university jobs, are afraid to probe the secrets of Pherotones too deeply, lest they offend the sensibilities of their colleagues.” – On the FAQ section of their website

    Yeah. And so is cancer, but you see us writing papers and submitting them to peer-reviewed journals. I’ve read many articles about rodent scrotums or the sexual habits of fruitflies, humans, hedgehogs, or trees. A “pherotone” is not “too sensitive” a subject. Sorry, but this is NOT something I’ll invest in. And neither should anyone. It’s just a gimmick.

  4. darrylsmith says:

    There are some questions that need to be answered…

    * If this is a viral campaign what is the product? Is it for some ringtone product? Or could it be for a movie, like they were doing with the movie AI? Or a TV Show like CSI, or Crossing Jordan.

    * They copied my Blog entry on the subject to their LAN share. How many other blog entries were stored? The way I know this is that the counter on my blog uses javascript to take the URL and send it to my server for use as a page counter. This is probably a violation of my copyright – and other peoples.

    * What is the legality of someone calling themselves a Doctor when they are not a doctor. I suspect this is called fraud

  5. bob11 says:

    I would imagine that the product will become known when the campaign reach a certain viral distribution “percentage”. This of course may be hampered that the true facts are coming out before the product is revealed. I suspect that the product will turn out to be a cell phone.

    As for the legality of their actions, I dunno. I do believe they have broken some “rules” and ethics at the very least, such as using blogspace but not informing them, creating a false article on wikipedia and being interviewed by a blogger and not citing that they are a fictional character.

    In the end, if this information is spread far enough, it may self implode. It is never wise to try and fake out the internet because the internet always manages to come back and bite you on the ass. (Coke Zero’s blog being just one of the latest examples)

  6. darrylsmith says:

    I now have more evidence. I decided that I did not like the idea of McKinney violating copyright so I emailed them. The reply I got is below. I am wondering how many other people who have blogged this have had their Blogs copied…

    Enjoy… Darryl Smith/Radioactive Networks

    Dear Mr. Smith:
    Thanks for your note. Sorry we didn’t respond earlier, but the first email did not reach its intended recipient.
    We did indeed copy a very small portion of one of your blog entries for some research we are doing. But we understand that you would prefer we not do this, so as a professional courtesy we’ve deleted that content from where it was stored. We’ve also issued instructions not to copy from your blog again.

    You have our apologies for causing you any inconvenience.
    Sincerely.

    JONI MADISON
    PARTNER / CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER /

  7. markbishop says:

    This is the new and intresting thing for me i could not imagine that this type of ringtones are present.

    I think Erotic mobile tones are also the same thing.

Comments are closed.

Discuss this article with the rest of the community on our Discord server!
Tagged

current: @adafruit - previous: MAKE, popular science, hackaday, engadget, fallon, braincraft ... howtoons, 2600...

View more articles by Phillip Torrone

ADVERTISEMENT

Maker Faire Bay Area 2023 - Mare Island, CA

Escape to an island of imagination + innovation as Maker Faire Bay Area returns for its 15th iteration!

Buy Tickets today! SAVE 15% and lock-in your preferred date(s).

FEEDBACK