While we were all sleeping last night the folks at
indieWIRE were preparing the
announcement of a deal with the site
SnagFilms.
What is
SnagFilms? (I had to look it up myself)
Variety describes it as "Hulu-style free streaming with social networking in that films stream for free but can also be shared or posted to Facebook pages or blogs." The doc distrib site was created by former AOLers
Ted Leonsis and backed by
Steve Case and
Miles Gilburne. Its Beta version launched today with 250 titles supplied by PBS, National Geographic, IndiePix, Arts Alliance America and Koch Lorber with titles including
Super Size Me,
Paper Clips and
Dig!And the fate of
iW? Seems like nothing will change. Editor
Eugene Hernandez emailed me late last night (or early this evening, however you want to look at it) with the news. He will remain the editor and will now have the title Editorial Vice President of SnagFilms. (Full disclosure: I have been a frequent contributor for
indieWIRE for the last five years and write the
Production Report column.)
Earlier today he e-mail me again and had this to say about the deal and future of the site:
"Today has been an exciting one for us, to finally share this news that
we've been working on for so long. But, the real proof will be in our
ability to make the deal work over time. We spent months vetting this
partnership, determined to make sure that Ted Leonsis was the right
parent for our little company and setting up the relationship in the
right way.
I was reading Tom Hall's blog this morning and he said something that will stick with me as an important manifesto, "Stay true to your
mission and you cannot fail."
indieWIRE was inspired, in part, by Filmmaker Magazine and our first
desk was a donated space in Filmmaker's old DGA office on 57th St. We share a passion and commitment to indie filmmakers and their films and I believe that iW can do even more to support those who are doing this work."
If you haven't read it yet, there's a sweet
letter from Eugene on
iW's front page.
Congrats guys.
# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 7/17/2008 10:48:00 AM
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