BobStein is the co-founder of Voyager, one of the earliest and most successful multimedia companies in the country. Founded in 1985, Voyager, which takes its name from the exploratory spacecraft, released laser discs of contemporary and classic films. In 1987, the company released its first HyperCard/computer controlled interactive discs. In 1988, it released its first consumer CD-ROM, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Voyager can be contacted at www.voyagerco.com.

Stein:

Voyager’s interest in still images is very closely related to our interest in text. What appeals to me about both text and still images is that they are media particularly suited for reflection. The most interactive thing that happens is a discussion between two people. And my favorite media are the ones that allow you to enter into a dialogue of a sort with an author. Because they happen at the producer's speed, most of the 20th century media--television, radio, movies--are very good at some things but they're not very good at actually letting you think along the way and question what you're seeing. They tend to be very moving and manipulative in the good sense of the word, but they don't really encourage the viewers to think about what they're looking at. In that sense, they're not as ideal for learning as still pictures and text.

A lot of times people will use Ken Burns [that is, the PBS Civil War Series] as an example of what you can do with still pictures. To me it's not a good example because he animates the pictures. Of course, when you look at a Ken Burns program it is a good example of the value of still pictures, and it shows what you can do with still pictures. It shows you can make still pictures into a movie very successfully. But to me, it subverts the principal value of the still picture, which is that the viewer has to be confronted, you've got to think about it, it doesn't do it for you, the way motion pictures do more easily.

The Pedro Meyer CD-ROM "I Photograph to Remember” [a moving story of the death of Meyer’s father told with sequenced stills, voice-over, and music], which we published in the early 90s, sold very, very well, but I’m afraid that if it had come out today it might not have sold as well. Video is inexorably getting bigger and better, and I am afraid that it's going to marginalize still pictures. I think that's a terrible thing. But bad money drives out good money somehow, and this whole industry is moving towards an advertiser-supported mass market of one kind or another. Advertisers find it easier to sell Fritos with movies than they do with still pictures.