by Vivian Wagner

Created on: August 14, 2008   Last Updated: February 22, 2010

Snag This:
New Service Lets Users Link to Documentary Films

Documentary films have long played second fiddle to dramas and other wide-release motion pictures. Now, though, SnagFilms will give broader exposure to this genre.

Using this service, people can upload full-length documentary films onto their Facebook or MySpace profiles, Web sites, and blogs. Visitors to those pages can then click on the films via a SnagFilms advertising-supported widget, watch them, and snag them for their own sites. As the buttons on the top of the SnagFilms site say, you can "find," "watch," "snag," and "support" films through the site.

It's a viral distribution model that SnagFilms hopes will breathe life into a documentary film world stifled by competition in an industry that has an inherent bias against them.

According to a press release from the company, "SnagFilms was created to address the bottleneck in distribution for quality documentaries that has left many great films unable to reach their potential audience or to provide a viable financial return."

SnagFilms was founded by Ted Leonsis, AOL Vice Chairman Emeritus and an award-winning documentary film producer in his own right. It distributes documentaries from some of the best-known documentary production companies: PBS, National Geographic, United Nations, Sundance Preserve, IndiePix, Peter Jennings Productions, Arts Alliance America, ITVS, and Koch Lorber Films.

It sounded like fun, so I tried it out. I went to the SnagFilms site, and I clicked on the "Search A-Z" button. One of the first films listed was 4, since the films are categorized alphabetically and numbers come first. It's about four violinists in different countries playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I'm a violinist and fiddler, so I was hooked.

I clicked on the little "snag" icon (which shows a grabbing or snagging! - hand) and directed it to load the film onto my Facebook page. I had to add the SnagFilms application on Facebook, and voil! I had turned my Facebook page into a mini-movie theater, just like that. When you click on the film widget, it brings up the SnagFilms page, thus ensuring hits for their advertisers. And, yeah, to watch the film and you might first have to sit through a commercial for Ritz Crackers.

I can see the appeal, though, and it's better than YouTube links, since you can be pretty sure that whatever film you post is going to be worth watching. All that's missing is the popcorn.

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