Netribution

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Netribution [1] - a Portmanteau of net and distribution - was launched in 1999 as a free resource and magazine for European filmmakers and went on to become one of the largest and most popular free film industry services up until its closure in 2002 [2].

Founded by students at University of Westminster, home of the UK's first ever cinema screening in 1896, and the world's first photography, film and media studies courses, Tom Fogg and Nicol Wistreich, and initially Wendy Bevan Mogg, Netribution was run by people who 'knew nothing about the internet, the film industry, magazines or running a business'. Nevertheless, and in spite of some of the worst luck to befall a start up and with no external investment, UK film industry support or advertising revenues, it grew to become the only magazine covering the Europe independent film industry in any depth.

Under Netribution in May 2001, Wistreich wrote the first widely published industry report on Digital Asset Management, a 175-page consultancy and overview to the convergent multi-platform rich media marketplace, for Informa Media Group. Fogg and Wistreich together also wrote in 2000 the first major review of auction, art and antiques websites in a report paid for by the Art and Antiques Trade Gazette, eBay and Sothebys.com [3] and were involved in running the now infamous last year of the London Screenings in 2001.

[edit] A history

Issue One covered the news that AOL and Time Warner were merging at the peak of the stock market boom. Two weeks after promises of millions in venture capital were offered as backing, Wistreich and Fogg quit university to focus on the project full time, and the dotcom crash began. The pair continued living off credit cards for the next year while courting, and being courted VCs such as Gorilla Park to Enron Broadband Services during the London implosion. Eventually Paris Based FilmFestivals.com provided enough money for a London office and expenses for travel to film festivals. Shortly after filmfestivals.com ran out of money, Netribution began to produce films for DKTV - the opposite situation to the founders' reason for setting up the site in the first place, which was to finance their own film projects. When DKTV ran out of money, the UK Film Council failed to follow through on earlier offers of support - not replying to a letter from Netribution's founders accompanied with over 100 letters of support from readers and industry leaders, and the site closed. [4]

Now operated through the loose collective 0.1 [5], also behind the Vingle project, Netribution launched a beta of a version 2.0 site in January 2006 accessible via Vingle.org[6].

[edit] References

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