Develops navigation systems for new media services

With media attention focused primarily on hyping the implementation of the digital superhighway infrastructure, it is sometimes easy to overlook the potential problems attached to the actual arrival of interactive broadband services into the home. How, for instance, will we navigate through this endless sea of information and entertainment products once they become available to us.

MNI Interactive of San Francisco believes it has an answer. The company, which was founded in 1990 under the name MusicNet Inc., plans to develop navigation systems and interface designs for media services that will ultimately be delivered over interactive broadband networks, according to John Atcheson, MNI cofounder, president and CEO.

The engineering team at MNI Interactive responsible for building those navigation systems includes some of the best and the brightest from Apple’s various interactive media development groups. John Worthington, who is best known as the project leader of the QuickTime team, has been named vice president of engineering. He is joined by former Apple interface guru, Dr. Michael Mills, who, along with David Vronay and Leo Degen, also now of MNI, developed Apple’s HyperMovie project. (The team declined to show its navigation and interface design since it is still a work in progress.)

GOSPEL TO METAL WITH A BUTTON PRESS

The company’s first foray into new media services is called MusicNet, an interactive music information and previewing service that costs $3.95 a month. In its first implementation, MusicNet enables subscribers using a touchtone telephone to dial a local number, punch in their membership number, and sample more than 3,000 music clips (30 seconds apiece). MusicNet offers a wide variety of musical styles, including rock and pop, country, R&B, rap, jazz, blues, gospel, metal and world beat. The service also offers excerpts from comedy titles as well as soundtracks and children’s CDs. (MusicNet does not yet offer classical. More than 400 new recordings a month fall under that category alone.)

In addition to sampling audio tracks, which are updated daily, MusicNet subscribers can access short reviews of new CDs, obtain concert information and buy CDs over the phone.

Personalized services. Members can even personalize MusicNet by filling out and returning a short questionnaire, which asks them to identify their 10 favorite recording artists. The MusicNet team then links that information to participating subscribers’ access numbers, and they automatically receive information on their favorite artists’ new album releases and local concert dates when they dial in. Members can modify their favorite artist lists — which can include up to 40 names — over the phone.

A musical matchmaker. In addition to providing subscribers with information about artists they already know and like, the service, through its MusicNet MatchUps technology, provides suggestions of new artists to try. These electronic “word of mouth” suggestions are created by electronically identifying and matching MusicNet members who have similar musical tastes, according to Atcheson.

In other words, if you and I have a lot of the same names on our favorite artists lists, the service might suggest that you try out one of the groups I have on my list that you have not yet selected. (MNI Interactive cofounder James Miller, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a leading expert in data analysis and computer system design, developed the MusicNet MatchUps technology, which is based on proprietary algorithms.)

GREAT FOR RESEARCH, SLOW ON DELIVERY

At launch, the telephone-based version of MusicNet is a great way to introduce you to new music or to help you keep track of favorite recording artists, but it is no fun for music lovers who want immediate gratification.

If you want to buy a MusicNet selection, for example, the service connects you to Tower Records distribution headquarters in New York City, where — similar to a mail order catalog operation — you give someone on the other end of the phone your credit card information, place your order and wait several weeks for delivery.

Added costs, limited hours. In addition to the price of the CDs, Tower charges $3.50 shipping and handling for the first CD and approximately $1 for every CD ordered through MusicNet afterward. Also problematic is the fact that while MusicNet operates 24 hours a day, access to Tower’s distribution center does not. Tower’s set hours are 9am to 9pm, Monday through Friday, 9am to 6pm on Saturday, and 9am to 5pm on Sunday (EST).

NEXT-GENERATION SERVICES UNDER DEVELOPMENT

According to Atcheson, the telephone-based version of MusicNet is only the beginning. The company plans to roll out a CD-ROM version of MusicNet later this year and expects to participate in at least one of the ITV broadband trials now under way across the United States. Atcheson declined to comment in any detail on either of these projects, but he did say MNI Interactive is in discussions with prospective technology and media partners, including 3DO, Silicon Graphics, Warner Records and Sony.

“What we don’t want to do is introduce a service that falls below expectation,” says Atcheson. “We will not deliver analog audio, nor are we willing to compress the audio to a degree where the music quality suffers.”

Janice Maloney