Thumbplay Inks AOL Deal

NYC-based mobile content company Thumbplay has signed on to provide ringtones and more for Time Warner's AOL. A release notes that the Thumbplay content will be integrated into AOL Music, AIM, Winamp (still big in Europe, apparently) etc.

Without a clearer sense of the financials, it's hard to say how big a deal this is for Thumbplay, but it's potentially important: The first wave of ringtone companies -- i.e., Zingy -- were middlemen between music labels and carriers and were quickly bypassed. Thumbplay's strategy is to establish itself as an "off-deck" destination -- i.e., not dependent on the carriers for business -- and getting itself in front of AOL's customers can't be a bad thing.

Related: Ringtone Pioneer Zingy Out Of Ringtone Business