Flat Spin Media LLC, a young Spokane multimedia company, is teaming up with two local experts in adolescent health to develop an educational CD-ROM disk that would appeal to youths and help them navigate adolescence.


Though the project has public-good intentionschief among them the prevention of teen suicideits also expected to be a money-making venture, says Craig Sorenson, a principal at Flat Spin, which does multimedia production and sells shaped CDs.


Flat Spin plans to distribute millions of the disks free to teens through a host of channels, but plans to make money by selling advertising to companies ranging from health-care and pharmaceutical companies to vendors of products and services aimed at youth.


The CDs content is being collected by noted Spokane mental-health expert Paul Quinnett and Dr. James States, a Spokane physician who specializes in adolescent and young-adult medicine. It will be based primarily on the Guidelines for Adolescent Preventive Services published in the mid-1990s by the American Medical Association. Called GAPS for short, the document provides recommendations on 14 topics ranging from adjusting to puberty and adolescence; to physical fitness and diet; to tobacco, alcohol, and drug use; to sexuality, depression, and suicide.


Work on the project began in April, and Quinnett and States believe the content will be collected by early summer, when Flat Spins creative team will begin to put the information in a form that will appeal to young people age 11 to 21, which is the target market. That, says Sorenson, will entail plenty of use of video, music, and animation. The intent is that adolescents will enjoy viewing and interacting with the CD, which theyll play in a personal computer CD-ROM drive, and at the same time will learn something about themselves. The CDs will give users access to virtually endless Web-based resources that can answer their questions about their health, both physical and mental.


Ads on the CD will take various forms, ranging from banner ads, to a full, television-like commercial stored digitally on the CD.


From a technical standpoint, the CD will work like a portal into a closed, secure Internet-based network, which means that when a user clicks on a hyperlink for information on a certain topic, the CD automatically will launch the users Internet connection, then connect to specific servers to provide the external content, rather than showing the user the Internet through a typical browser.


Sorenson says the team hopes to complete the CD by late summer, after which distribution will begin. He says the team hopes to get physicians to distribute the CDs directly to adolescents and their parents, and also plans to get school districts to distribute the CDs to students. Other possible distribution channels include magazinesin which the CD would be attached to a page in or the binding of the publicationsocial service organizations, and even stores that target youth.


Flat Spin is counting on the credibility that Quinnett and States bring to the project to help it open doors both with advertisers and organizations that could distribute the CD. He hopes to be able to produce 10 million of the CDs and distribute them nationally.


Sorenson says the company will need to secure at least $5 millionor 50 cents per diskin advertising revenue to break even on the project, and says its conceivable revenue could reach $2 per disk, or $20 million.


Quinnett is a nationally known expert on suicide prevention. For the past decade, he has worked for Spokane Mental Health, where he most recently was chief psychologist, and two years ago founded QPR Institute Inc., a Spokane company that provides suicide-prevention training. States is a principal in Adolescent & Young Adult Medicine PS, of Spokane, and presents seminars on healthy families and other issues. He also is a mountaineer, who was the 17th American to have climbed Mount Everest.


In addition to multimedia production, Flat Spin offers 3-D animation, Web-site design, and software development, as well as computer CDs that are cut into unusual shapes. The nearly 2-year-old company employs five people and is located at 905 E. Third.


Flat Spin already is working on another similar project, with a Spokane software company called ISET Inc., to put on disk a program and other information to help women do self-examinations for possible breast cancer.