Salon.com Beyond The Multiplex

Posted July 14, 2009

Salon.com
Beyond the Multiplex
Movies online: The future is (almost) here
By Andrew O’Hehir

SnagFilms Still technically in beta, this free-streaming documentary site, launched last year, has become an Internet mecca for nonfiction mavens. Thanks to an easily exportable widget (hence the name), SnagFilms’ catalog of 700-plus docs can be found on literally thousands of other Web sites, many of them issue-oriented blogs or newsletters. CEO Rick Allen says his advertising-supported model will eventually offer decent financial returns to filmmakers—at least if and when the number of online viewers begins to approach cable TV. I found the SnagFilms interface user-friendly and highly “agnostic”—you can watch the film free on their site, buy a DVD or download the movie from whomever’s selling it, link to your Facebook profile, donate money to a related charity and so on. What I Watched: The weird and gripping rural New Mexico anarchist doc “Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa.” It played without a hitch.

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