I received a really wonderful text message around 6pm tonight. My friend and former coworker from The New York Times, Dan Eberle, sent a note with two beautiful words, “We won”.

Dan worked with me at The New York Times as a customer service representative for the online classifieds at nytimes.com. He supported my product, The New York Times Job Market. But he has been tirelessly moonlighting as a competely independent film producer, director, actor and writer for the past two years or so. And tonight, he learned that he won Best Feature at the 2006 Avignon/New York Film Festival for his second completely self-produced feature, JailCity.

I left Brooklyn for Los Angeles in July 2005, shortly after helping Dan shoot his first film, Vicissitude, over a weekend. (As compensation for my help holding the boom mike, Dan wrote me into Vicissitude. I’m not sure if this was a reward or a subconscious way for him to work out some day-job aggressions…in the scene he wrote me into, he beat me to a bloody pulp and crammed my lifeless drug mule body into a garbage can). I wasn’t living in New York in time to see the final cut of Vicissitude aired at Hunter College. Dan sent a copy to me via DVD. But he worked tirelessly on that film for months, self-editing it into the wee hours most nights. And the end product was really good. Though the plotline had some pretty noticeable flaws and inconsistencies (Dan, why didn’t you just call the cops?), the visual storytelling was really wonderful…and quite amazing for someone who had only taught himself how to edit while making the film!

This first film, which he wrote, directed, produced (funded), starred in and edited, was barely in the can when I received an instant message from Dan telling me that he was about to jump right into his second film, JailCity. This time around, his production values (and aspirations) got a lot bigger, but he still completely ran the show as director, producer, editor and star (though his long-time friend and former high school drama teacher Paul James Vasquez this time joined him as co-writer). And once again, he did all of this in about a nine month span while working full time at The New York Times.

I’ve seen JailCity, though also only on DVD. It’s beautifully shot and the storytelling is absolutely top notch. For a taste, here’s the JailCity trailer. I hope now it will soon screen in a festival or theater out here in LA.

And this brings us to today’s Avignon Film Festival press release announcing that JailCity wins 21^st Century Filmmaker Award for Best U.S. Feature.

Congratulations, Dan. Your dedication and drive to pursue the thing that you love is truly inspiring. I wish you nothing but continued successes in pursuit of your dreams. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more pure example of sheer DIY willpower prevailing. And to the rest of the JailCity cast: fantastic work and congratulations. You have truly earned the recognition.

P.S., And on a more geeky internet-dork note, on the JailCity site Dan offers a widget/badge
for people to paste into their MySpace page or blog to promote the film! Check it out.

In the late 1990s, The Old 97s looked like they might be the first indie alt-country band to break into the pop mainstream with hits like Big Brown Eyes and Barrier Reef.

Well, they have definitely hit the mainstream now, albeit in a different way than they probably hoped for originally.

Chilis

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At least they don’t actually sing the words "I want my baby back baby back baby back…"

For more on the Old 97s, here’s their MySpace page.

Alt-title to this post: "And all I got with this d@mn t-shirt!"

I only got to attend the Saturday night portion of Barcamp this go round.  I spent yesterday with nose in powerpoint preparing for a guest lecture at USC Annenberg which I will give this evening.  I’ll post my presentation and thoughts about the class in the next few days.

But I’m glad that Kareem Mayan at least captured me in my finest ex-company schwag tshirt:

Photo by Kareen Mayan (on Flickr).

Photo by Kareem Mayan (on Flickr).

For those of us thinking that we might be in the midst of a second internet bubble, I present to you the timeline of the original Snap.com — my first internet job.  (And note that this is different from the current snap.com, a  new search engine that purchased the defunct domain from NBC…)

The Rise and Fall of Snap.com

• 22 September 1997: Snap.com launches as a spinoff search and directory from CNET.
• 13 October 1998: Snap and CNET launch Email.com as free online email
• 9 June 1998: NBC makes first investment into Snap.com and states that it will "fill Snap’s board of directors with NBC executives"
• 10 May 1999: NBC steps in and merges its online properties with Snap.com and Xoom.com to form NBC Internet
• November 1999: NBCi IPOs on NASDAQ at $76 per share.
• 20 January 2000: Not a major event in the timeline, but interesting nonetheless.  NBC and NBCi trade advertising space for an equity stake in Flooz.com.
• January 2000: NBCi stock, three months young, hits high of $106
• 28 February 2000: Soon after declaring that broadband was the future, NBCi.com launches by rebranding and merging Snap, Xoom and NBC.com services into a broadband portal.  Note that in February 2000, US broadband penetration rates were at about 5% of online households.
• 27 March 2000: Will Lansing replaces Chris Kitze as CEO
• May 2000: NBCi and 600 employees move into 8 floors of the 80 year old Standard Oil building, which NBC Internet purchased for $143.5 million.  The building is renamed "The NBCi Building".  Posters are distributed to the employees.
• 4 September 2000: BusinessWeek publishes "Behind the Mess at NBC’s Floundering NBCi"
• 30 October 2000: NBCi CEO Will Lansing states in Forbes article that "We’re going to rival Yahoo!  Maybe not in 2001, but not too long after that."
• 9 April 2001: GE pulls the plug and buys out the rest of NBCi at $2.19 a share.  Lays off most employees.
• 1 May 2005: NBC Internet sells 225 Bush Street for $178.5 million, generating an IRR of 17%.  Externally, the building appears to have reverted back to the name "The Standard Oil Building".

Happy Monday! Hey, at least we were optimistic!

And it sounds like the rest of Barcamp was a blast.  Check out Greg Cohn’s cool SixWordSciFi project.  Thanks a ton to Kareem, Heather, Jason, Little Radio and everyone else who pitched into the event.  I’m really sorry that I missed all of the sessions.

Check it.