Snag Films has been out for a bit now, and I’m not sure how they are doing, though I have noticed Snag-related stories and promotion around the internets.  When they launched, I wrote to them to suggest using the technology for trailers as well as full-length films.  For me, the chance of making money in a scheme where revenues are tied to people watching the whole film (Snag monetizes the films with a series of interstitial ads, and the filmmaker gets something like $.10 if the viewer watches the whole film) and this is a streaming situation, even if it looks nice, it’s hard to know if it will actually make money for most films- when selling a DVD or download could yield a higher take when viewers don’t think the films is available anytime for free. (Though they might feel so excited by watching it on Snag that they go buy the DVD that very second- it’s hard to know what to expect).

On the other hand, sending a high-quality trailer around with a widget is a great idea, especially on Facebook or other social networking sites. Especially if that trailer includes a link to buy the film, either as a download or a DVD.  This is so simple, people definitely like a bite-sized video item like a trailer for sharing, and it’s much better for the film’s revenues.  And you could still monetize the widget! Use adwords or some simple graphic advertizing on the widget. Make it work for mobile in the best-case scenario.

So Caachi has just announced their Vidget, which essentially hews to this bare bones of this plan.  It isn’t the most attractive thing you’ve ever seen, but it does seem to connect to Facebook as well as create posts for Blogger, Wordpress, and a few other blog and networking sites. The trailer itself is really small and it is text-heavy (unlike the slick-looking Snag widget). At the moment it only seems to be set up for GORDO (this may just be a bug I am having on my Mac), but it will be interesting to see if they have success.

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