You've heard about the booming biz in musical ring-tones for mobile phones. Now you can send musical messages to friends, family, complete strangers or mortal enemies:

The telephone rang, and the voice of Lionel Richie came on the line.

"Hello, is it me you're looking for?" the pop singer crooned.

Of course, this call wasn't from Richie himself, but a recorded 90-second clip from his 1984 hit "Hello," delivered as a phone message by a San Francisco startup called Musicphone Inc.

For $1.50 per message, Musicphone lets users create musical messages featuring song clips from artists like Richie, Stevie Wonder, Nelly, Eminem, Shaggy and Sheryl Crow.

Musicphone has cut licensing deals with Universal Music Group, the world's biggest record company, and music publishers BMI and ASCAP. AT&T Wireless began offering the Musicphone service to its MMode cell phone subscribers last month.

...."Most people react very well to music. It brings a smile to their faces," said Birame Sock, chief executive officer of the five-employee firm, which plans to add recorded jokes to its menu.

Sock founded Musicphone in February 2002, picking up the name and Web site of a failed New York dot-com company.

Customers can log on to www.musicphone.com, pick a song and type an introductory text message and the recipient's phone number. AT&T customers can send messages from their cell phones.

The person receiving the message will hear a computer-generated voice reading the text message, followed by the song clip. [SF Chronicle]