"SUNDANCE BECOMING A BLOG FEST"

Makes sense. Pretty good move by Jason Calacanis.

As befits its indie roots, the Sundance Film Festival has long played host to innovations that have spread elsewhere.

Blogging is one of them. Personal blogs, millions of them, are spreading on the Internet like kudzu, from LiveJournal.com to MySpace.com. A professional blog such as Gawker Media's gossipy Defamer.com can draw as many as 270,000 page views per day.

As blogs become more successful, they're challenging traditional media, and this year's Sundance marks a fascinating juncture as newly powerful blogs like Cinematical.com take on the likes of The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.

"Blogs are becoming a vital part of an independent film scene that relies on word-of-mouth and alternative media to truly thrive," says Eugene Hernandez, editor of the pioneering indie film site IndieWire.com, which hosts some two dozen blogs and this year has asked 12 filmmakers from Sundance and the concurrent Slamdance to blog about their experiences.

BloggingSundance.com, a pioneering festival blog, was dreamed up by the founder of the Weblogs Inc. Network, Jason Calacanis, who persuaded the festival to let him blog in 2003. "I blogged live from inside movie theaters. I'd sit in the back row with my laptop," he recalls. "It's the closest thing to live coverage." Film fanatic Calacanis continued to blog Sundance through 2004 and '05, when he reviewed 19 to 20 movies by himself. "When I'm at Sundance I don't go to parties, I watch films," he says. (full article)