Web site hopes to become home for job-seeking artists

QUINCY - The idea sounded like a can't-miss proposition: Take MySpace-style social networking tools and build a Web site where aspiring actors, musicians and other creative types can make connections and look for jobs.

''I thought if we could do something like this that addressed the entertainment industry, it would be a real killer because in the entertainment industry, it's who you know more than anything,'' said Jeff Pucci, founder and CEO of Quincy-based Nextcat Inc., ''and I didn't see anybody doing that.''

Launched in May 2006, Nextcat has attracted 20,000 registered users from authors and artists to models and production assistants. Members can post personal profiles, videos, audio files and blog entries, and search for jobs in the entertainment industry.

The company is an outgrowth of a long business relationship between Pucci and Richard Viard, Nextcat's co-founder and senior vice president of product development.

The two Berklee College of Music graduates met while working in the 1980s at Doctor T's, a now-defunct music software company in Chestnut Hill. Pucci and Viard later left to form their own company, Virtual Entertainment of Needham, developing and publishing dozens of multimedia titles and selling them on CD-ROMs at mass merchandisers such as Wal-Mart.

But by 1997, competition from educational content on the Internet drove down prices dramatically, forced them to reassess their business model. They switched to an online format with a Web site called smarterkids.com, raising $27 million in startup funds and $61 million in an initial public offering. The company was sold in 2001 to Monterey, Calif.-based school supplier Excelligence Learning Co. and Pucci left the company. Viard, 48, stayed on briefly before joining Boston-based smartbargains.com.

For inspiration on his next venture, Pucci looked to his background in music. In early 2004, Viard showed him the professional social networking site LinkedIn and the two discussed the potential for a similar site focusing on the entertainment industry.

Pucci met with some deep-pocketed friends who provided $300,000 in angel financing to hire a handful of former Smarterkids.com employees to set up the Nextcat Web site. A bare-bones version launched in May 2006.

Since then, Nextcat has been upgraded to enable users to upload pictures, videos and documents, which can be viewed by other members and commented upon.

''The idea was: Let's put up something where somebody can put up a profile and get feedback from the community,'' Viard said.

A jobs section enables Nextcat members to list skills and receive alerts when a job ad matches their qualifications. Last week, Nextcat added a gaming category for video game developers to network.

Nextcat also has partnered with Eventful, a San Diego-based online event listing Web site used by 30,000 musicians and major music labels, to share listings.

Pucci, 47, runs the business from a home office in downtown Quincy, and the other four employees work from remote locations. For growth, Nextcat is in talks with about a dozen venture capital firms to obtain $1.5 million in financing. The money would be used to hire additional developers to expand the site's capabilities.

Nextcat recently reached a tentative agreement with a group of Hollywood producers to bring A-list celebrities onto the site as members, pending Nextcat's completion of due diligence research.

''They will be able to get us the real star power we didn't know we'd ever begin to get,'' Pucci said. ''That's when it starts to become interesting with the potential growth.''

The site is supported solely by about $25,000 in annual ad revenues through Google Adsense, but Pucci has considered adding a monthly subscription fee for premium services.

Rapid growth of user visits - driven by the deal with the Hollywood group - could eliminate the need, however, for a subscription model, Pucci said. The site currently attracts about 1.5 million page views per month, including 24,000 unique visitors.

Nextcat also could derive revenues from ''a la carte'' fees, such as human resources executives paying for data mining on prospective job candidates, Viard said.

''People in the entertainment industry, as soon as they get a job, they have to start thinking about the next job,'' Viard said. ''So this is where the work-seeking aspect is the 'killer ap' of social networking.''

Patriot Ledger