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Tim Appelo's full article is on Hollywood Reporter
"What the film industry desperately needs is a merger of social networks and content," says Ted Hope, the celebrated producer of American Splendor and dozens of indie hits at Sundance and elsewhere. That's why he just joined former Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly on the board of Fandor, the indie film streaming site built by Dan Aronson and Jonathan Marlow, a veteran of Amazon and GreenCine. After several months in beta (trial-run mode), Fandor made its full-fledged debut Wednesday.
Fandor streams about 2,500 films, far fewer than Amazon or Netflix. But instead of having users discover movies through mainstream studio marketing and "people who bought this also bought that" algorithms, Fandor concentrates on indie (and international) movies -- no TV -- and relies on human expertise to curate, like a film fest programmer or the proprietor of a great video store like Chicago's Facets or Seattle's Scarecrow Video -- to pick the good ones, from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to the latest, weirdest Oscar-nominated foreign film, Dogtooth. "It isn't just a simple algorithm," says Marlow. "It's an actual individual who can distil the reasons why you might be interested in the movie." Then you can read learned essays about the films, and plunge into the discussion youself. For $10 a month (or a free first-month introductory trial) you can watch all you want on Fandor, and rave (or pan) them with friends on Facebook..."
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