Sites Are More About Fostering Harmony Than Making Money

Leaders from the online music industry gathered at the annual Plug.In conference in New York last week, focusing mainly on the Internet as a pipeline for delivering the record labels’ products.

But some of the most interesting Web-based music services aren’t about distributing music as much as they are about having fun with it. To these sites, music is the glue for a community whose members meet through shared likes and dislikes.

Two examples are the new versions of MTV’s Web site, which is expected to launch in about a week, and Echo Networks’ service, which made its debut in mid-July. Although both companies hope to sell music through the Net, their sites are built around communication, not commerce.

That might prove to be a wise strategy. As long as there are file-swapping sites that make pirated copies of every hit CD or single available for free, selling downloadable songs or subscription radio services will be a challenge.

Nicholas Butterworth, head of MTV’s online operations, said the theme of the new site is connecting--to music, to MTV and to each other. Although previous generations wouldn’t have associated a computer with any of those activities, Butterworth said MTV’s research found a fundamental shift toward entertainment as a “technology-mediated experience.”

MTV’s core audience of teens and young adults is a multi-tasking group that keeps multiple communications channels going at the same time. With that in mind, a major feature of the glossy new site is messaging between registered users.

Each page devoted to a band, a show or any other MTV topic will include links to the profiles of the last 10 registered users who visited that page. From the profiles, which offer self-penned biographical blurbs, users can send instant messages on a system open only to those logged into MTV.com. Users can also search through the profiles for people who like the bands they like, or who have some other attribute in common. You could even search for people who listed your profile as one of their favorites, but you’d probably prefer not to know how small the number really is.

The not-so-subtle, feel-good message to users is that they’re not surfing the Web alone (unless, of course, no one responds to their instant messages). But there’s something useful for music lovers as well, and that’s the ability to see what other folks with similar tastes are listening to. That’s not as powerful as the hotlist feature on Napster, which shows all the music that individual users have on their computer. But it’s a start.

Echo lets people create Web radio stations with their favorite genre or genres of music, then invite their friends and others to listen to synchronized streams. Members of the group can rate what they’re listening to, with the ratings affecting the playlist. The effect is like a virtual listening lounge, complete with chatting.

The new version has opened up several more ways to find and communicate with Echo members. For starters, it offers users a list of other Echo members whose preferences have something in common with theirs. Included are links to the stations those Echo members are listening to at the moment, along with the song being played. If you’re interested, you can jump into the member’s virtual lounge and start trading instant messages.

By adding someone to your list of Echo friends, you can see a list of the songs, artists and LPs that the person has raved about.

The missing piece is giving users more control over the stations they create, and in particular letting them play specific songs for their friends. Echo wants to provide such features, but doing so requires interactive licenses from the labels and music publishers.

Such licenses have been hard to come by for online music companies, which was one reason behind the grim tone at the Plug.In conference. Jupiter Media Metrix, the research and consulting company that sponsored the show, predicted that consumer spending on music online would grow more than 500% during the next five years, but the vast majority of those dollars would go for packaged CDs--not the downloadable songs and subscription services that Web companies want to sell.

Several subscription-music services are expected to launch during the next three months, including at least six with a sizable number of the major labels’ songs. Fans will have an array of ways to discover and buy music, including online jukeboxes, personalized radio stations, file-sharing networks and song-rental services.

Whether any of these appeal to consumers, however, is an open question. Skepticism abounded at Plug.In, as online companies grumbled that the labels weren’t letting them take their best shot.

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Times staff writer Jon Healey covers the convergence of entertainment and technology.