Skype’s Music Overture

A plan to sell ringtones may be a low-risk ploy to whet users’ appetites for a raft of more lucrative VoIP-based entertainment services.

The deals mark a major expansion of Skype’s ringtone efforts, which got under way last year. Until now, the personal.skype.com store has only offered a few customized, jazz ringtones. But Skype is dabbling more in music. It recently gave users an opportunity to call and leave messages for Coldplay.

The online store’s Extras for Skype section offers a dozen free music-related applications, created by independent developers with nifty capabilities such as getting the home computer to call the user via Skype and play a favorite song from the PC.

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