SnagFilms launched in beta, this past week. The site, founded by award winning documentary producer Ted Leonsis, allows a viewer to stream one of the 250 documentaries in its library. Free, with no sign-ups or software downloads! Streaming some of the greatest names in indie docs such as Arts Alliance America, Indiepix, and ITVS, Snag has an additional 200 films, already under contract, that will be added next month.
As the name implies, films can also be snagged from the site and embedded on a MySpace or Facebook page (or any other page for that matter). Using the SnagFilms widget, it seamlessly enables the viewer to snag either a single movie, or multiple movies in pre-arranged category widgets. These widgets can turn any web page into a digital movie theater, offering free, full-length viewing of the best of indie non-fiction films via a pop-up player. The movies are advertiser supported, with the revenue shared equally between Snag and the filmmakers.
“There has never been a time when so many high-quality socially relevant documentary films have been made, yet even though tens of thousands of documentaries are submitted to film festivals every year, only a handful find theatrical distribution. SnagFilms was created so that anyone who has a website, publishes a blog, or participates in a social network can open an online multiplex theater, giving others an opportunity to watch one or more of the films we’ll stream, to distribute these films by snagging them for their own sites, and to support the causes promoted by these films by linking to participating nonprofits. Through SnagFilms, everyone on the web can be a theater owner and a film distributor if they just donate their pixels and enable these incredible documentaries to be seen,” says Leonsis.
This new distribution channel for indie docs has enormous potential. As Snag clears up the bottleneck that has always plagued the genre, these compelling movies can be seen by wider audiences. These new audiences will also be able to act on what they see. Spurring viewers to social action, SnagFilms encourages users to engage the films’ issues and supporter communities through special bonus material and links to relevant nonprofits.
Here’s a movie I snagged:
(Seven years in the making and culled from 2000 hours of footage, DIG! plunges into the underbelly of rock n roll, unearthing an incredible true story of success and self-destruction. Anton A. Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Courtney Taylor of the Dandy Warhols are star-crossed friends and bitter rivals - DIG! is the story of their loves and obsessions, gigs and recordings, arrests and death threats, uppers and downers, and the delicate balance between art and commerce).
Become a “filmanthropist” and check out this site!
Art tees have been my favorite things for years now. I’m not really into big flash logos, big words, naked girls or any of that stuff. But I’m a sucker for art and specifically art with some type of meaning that’s easy to see. Enter Wheatbread! This company has been around for years and years and they still haven’t gotten the rep they deserve for quality clothing and looks. Here’s my favorite been wearing it out since ‘04.
LEGENDmag was down in the Lower Haight this weekend to help celebrate a wonderful showing of work by Aaron Nagel. D-Structure hosted the event and, as always, there was a mighty fine showing of people! The work is absolutely spectacular as you can see from the photos posted here. The DJ’s had the floor groovin’ and the bartenders were packed 4 deep. And before they wheeled away all the shelves, I got a chance to check out some of the fine threads they have… let me tell you! Some good indie stuff down there.
If you are in or around San Francisco during the month of April, it is well worth the stop.
ICONS by Aaron Nagel
Runs 4/4/08 - 5/1/08 at D-Structure
520 Haight St. (@ Fillmore), SF, CA
“Cannibalization Factor” Eating The Company’s Future
According to a list released this week, Wal-Mart Stores has abandoned a record-shattering 45 proposed projects over the past 10 months — often leaving local officials dejected and confused. Another 19 Wal-Mart projects have been killed by local citizen’s groups. In total, the world’s largest retailer has suffered an historic loss of 64 projects.
The list of store cancellations was compiled by Sprawl-Busters, which has maintained a database on Wal-Mart battles for more than a decade. Since June, 2007, the Arkansas-based retailer has delayed or killed its own stores in the following communities:
The independent book publisher, No Starch Press, is giving away two of their best-selling books for free via Bit Torrent, beginning today. The author and the publisher are taking a remarkably unusual approach:
In today’s electronic world we can choose to fight a losing battle with DRM, or we can take a counter-intuitive approach and turn things on their head.
We believe that when people read our books they’ll see how they good they are, and they’ll buy them. It happens to us all the time at almost every show that we go to. Many people buy literally armloads of our books. It’s kind of amazing, in a good way.
I own the Cult of Mac book myself, and can attest to it being quite worth the price—even after downloading the content for free. Call me a design geek, but there is something nice about a hard-bound book which a computer cannot touch. (It doesn’t hurt that I have mine signed by the author, either!)
Here are the links to the torrent downloads (Cult of Mac, Cult of iPod), here is the link to the No Starch blog post with the full text on their decision, and here is a link to their online store—in case you want to purchase the physical books.
As always, it is important to support independent publishing, because as illustrated here, they are often the ones setting trends for everyone else! And let’s hope this is a trend that catches on!
If you haven’t checked out 37signals and their Basecamp (online project management) software you should definitely give it a shot. The best thing about what they do is how simple it is. We’ve been working on our database of indie people, places, and things and I found inspiration in their words.
“We’ll cover the concept of less throughout this book, but for starters, less means:
Less features
Less options/preferences
Less people and corporate structure
Less meetings and abstractions
Less promises”
Taken from their book Getting Real. These things hit home with me as we begin to think of ways to sale and tell people about why LEGENDmag is the way to go. So to all of you business owners that read the blog, maybe this will help you a little bit. Check out the rest of the book for free online.
How many times have you been driving, thought of an idea, and scrambled to type it into your phone in bumper-to-bumper traffic without crashing? Well… dangerous driving be gone! Enter Jott.com. You dial a number, and say what you want. Jott converts it into text and sends it to the appropriate place. Check out the video:
Granted, they need to get a little better with the acting–and the blatant jawbone headset plug is a bit awkward–but you get the idea.
However, especially exciting for me is that it communicates with other services like Twitter, Wordpress, Blogger, Google Calendar, Toodledo, Backpack, among others! And best of all is that FREE word! So go check it out and tell ‘em LEGENDmag sent you!
Lady’s and gents. The time has arrived! Some people are still thinking of you, the customer. There are people out there (with lots of money I might add) who are working within the rules but making it better for you and I.
Remember when you could hit the local record store (tower RIP) and listen to anything you wanted before you bought it. The good ‘ole days are back again. Listen to all the new shit, upload your mp3’s for listening anywhere, buy the album when you hear something you want. Don’t believe me here’s a little lo fi look at the interface.
Lastly, the real test of any site that’s trying to get our attention, IT’S FREE! I don’t want this to be an infomercial but so far so good guys. Feel free to go and download at will.
