ITech Startup of the month.

INITIAL LIGHTBULB: Chairman/founder Alan Kaplan is a Bay Area transplant with a bio that blends music (as former CEO of award-winning New Age label, Music West) and computing (he was involved in the retail launch of the Apple llc and the Macintosh). He initially sought to use the Web to market music via digital previews. That idea led to a few R&D detours between 1998 and 2000. "We started out with a download model," said Richard Sharp, ClickPlay's communications coordinator. However, the concept didn't prove scalable or user-friendly. "The more clicks, the more directions you have to give, the less likely people are to interact with it," Sharp explained. Consequently, ClickPlay changed course during the first quarter of 2000, moving to a streaming model aimed at Internet neophytes, and going beyond music into promotions for print, gaming, video, and art.

IN A NUTSHELL: ClickPlay's technology sends media previews as 35-kilobyte, self-extracting, Java-based Applets that play independently of any brand of media player (i.e. RealPlayer, WinAmp, Windows Media Player). "You just click and it starts playing, without any other activity," said Kaplan. "Even a 56K modem will get it to you in about two seconds. You don't have to futz around with anything else."

Targeting major media companies, ClickPlay plans to encode previews of its clients' products and then license those previews out as content to relevant dot-coms. Users, after taking in these three-second to three-minute previews, will then be able to link with an online retailer or real-world movie theater to buy a CD, video game, book, video, or ticket -- or else print out a coupon good at their neighborhood brick-and-mortar store.

ClickPlay will bill a fee for each preview streamed, as well as take a cut from the resultant sales. (Kaplan, the nephew of the first McDonald's franchisee, sees this preview model as akin to his first job: passing out free samples of Filet O' Fish sandwiches.)

The company's business plan doesn't end there. Kaplan said the company will become a manager of...