“One of the most potent docs I’ve seen at the festival — or anywhere else in quite a while.”
IMDB

You can read all the reviews and hear all the latest at the official website Life2Movie.com

Over and out!

Steph

Official press release is below….

Steph

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December 3, 2009, PalmStar Entertainment and Andrew Lauren Productions are pleased to announce that “Life 2.0” (life2movie.com), directed by Jason Spingarn-Koff, has just been accepted into the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Produced by PalmStar’s Stephan Paternot, Andrew Lauren (“The Squid and the Whale”) and Jason Spingarn-Koff, this film is the first of a kind feature length documentary about the impact that the virtual community Second Life has had on the world. Paternot, who founded theglobe.com back in 1994, one of the internet’s first online communities, says of the film: “It tells a powerful story of the evolution of virtual communities and how such an immersive virtual world like Second Life has transformed millions of real people’s lives around the world, giving the audience a visionary glimpse of the future.” Andrew Lauren adds, “It’s a film about personal connection that illuminates a poetic hope in the strength of human interaction.”

This feature-length documentary follows a group of people whose lives are dramatically transformed by the virtual world Second Life, which as of this year boasts over one billion US dollars in cumulative transactions amongst its residents, and over one billion hours of total usage time. More than an examination of a hot new technology, the film is foremost an intimate, character-based drama about people who look to a virtual world in search of something they are missing in their real lives. The results are unexpected and often disturbing: reshaping relationships, identities, and ultimately the very notion of reality. A young black woman in Detroit becomes a star designer of virtual clothes and buildings, turning virtual business into a lucrative full time job – while spending 20 hours a day online in her parent’s basement. An American and a Canadian fall in love inside Second Life, yet each is married in real life — cheating on their spouses, they struggle to build a real life together that can match their virtual bliss. A man creates the avatar of an 11-year-old girl who he believes is an expression of his subconscious; to the dismay of his fiancé, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery that unearths shattering hidden memories. They are a cross-section of the millions of users who have been lured into the virtual world phenomenon. Mixing high drama and quirky humor, the film uniquely explores the promise, perils, and implications of virtual worlds for society at large.

Spingarn-Koff says: “I joined Second Life more than three years ago and found it endlessly fascinating – something that until now seemed largely science fiction. There was clearly a story that needed to be told, though it often seemed impossible because many people within SL are extremely guarded about their real identities. It took more than six months to find the main characters, exploring the world while my avatar carried around a virtual movie camera. I’m enormously grateful for my subjects who opened up their lives, real and virtual, to share their stories. The film had humble beginnings — we raised the first $100 from other avatars at a virtual fundraiser – and it’s been a true labor of love. To now to have a chance to premier at Sundance is a dream come true.”

Jason Spingarn-Koff is a New York-based documentary filmmaker who specializes in science and technology. “Life 2.0” is his first feature, following a decade of work in television documentaries and journalism. He created and co-produced NOVA’s “The Great Robot Race” (PBS/BBC), about a dramatic competition to build robotic vehicles and race them across the Mojave desert for a $2 million prize. Other projects include: Development Producer for the Emmy- winning PBS mini-series “Rx for Survival”; producing/directing the first-person “Heart of Berlin” for FRONTLINE/World; producing/directing the lead story for the PBS/NOVA science pilot “Science Investigators”; and producing/directing two 1-hour documentaries for MSNBC, hosted by Forrest Sawyer (“Nature?s Weapon: The Hidden Plague” and “The Next War”). His Masters thesis documentary “Robofly,” about the quest to build the world?s first robotic fly, aired on PBS and won a national Student Emmy. His journalism has appeared in national publications such as Time Magazine and Wired.com, and his experimental short films have shown in festivals and galleries. He is a graduate of Brown University and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

Stephan Paternot is the co-founder and Chairman of PalmStar Entertainment, an independent film production company focused on literary and biographical adaptations, including a Gus Van Sant developed story called the “Golden Suicides”, and “Lunar Park” by Bret Easton Ellis. Stephan also sits on the board of the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP.org), the largest national non-for profit organization dedicated to supporting independent filmmakers. He is also general partner of the Actarus Funds. Founded in 2001, these angel investor funds provide seed capital to Internet 2.0 start-ups. Prior to this he cofounded one of the first Internet community sites, theglobe.com in 1994. The company set stock market history when it went public in 1998 with a record setting IPO pushing the company valuation to over $1 Billion. Over a six-year span the website became one of the top thirty sites in the world with over 17 million users. In 1999 Stephan won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and in 2001 published “A Very Public Offering”, a non-fiction business book detailing his experience at theglobe.com. Before founding the company Stephan attended Cornell University where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. Stephan currently resides in New York City.

Andrew Lauren began his film career as an actor, and has performed roles in several movies including Sweet and Lowdown directed by Woody Allen and Conspiracy Theory starring Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts. Lauren moved to producing in 1998, establishing ALP’s first office in Los Angeles. Lauren conceived of the story behind ALP’s second feature G which premiered at the inaugural TriBeCa Film Festival in May of 2002. Andrew then went on to executive produce the critically acclaimed film The Squid and the Whale. The film was nominated for an Oscar and went on to receive six Independent Spirit Award nominations in addition to three Golden Globe nominations. Most recently ALP produced the documentary This Is Not A Robbery which premiered at the 2008 TriBeCa Film Festival. Andrew currently resides in New York.

Film Credits:
Presented by Andrew Lauren Productions and PalmStar Entertainment
Produced, Directed, and Edited by Jason Spingarn-Koff
Producers: Andrew Lauren and Stephan Paternot
Co-Producer: Jonathan Shukat
Director of Photography and Consulting Producer: Dan Krauss
Music by Justin Melland
Additional Editor: Shannon Kennedy

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A summary intro ran here:
http://www.bigwinner.org/2008/06/28/interview-with-theglobe-founder-stephen-paternot/

A segment of it got picked up on Silicon Alley Insider this morning which is timely as there is recent rumor about Facebook staff looking to sell insider shares at a huge discount.
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/6/theglobe-com-advice-to-facebook-execs-sell-some-shares-now

The full Q&A ran here (and listed below):
http://www.pehub.com/wordpress/?p=2653

If you’re over the age of 30, you know that before there was Facebook, there was “virtual community” TheGlobe.com, founded in 1994 by then 20-year-old Cornell classmates Stephan Paternot and Todd Krizelman.

The site, where people were invited to share interests like relationships and movies via chat rooms, was hard to miss. Like its peers Geocities and Tripod, it was applauded for pioneering new territory, grabbing headlines, and lots of cash, along the way. Though VCs passed when approached by Paternot and Krizelman, Michael Egan, the founder of Alamo Rent-a-Car, handed over $20 million for a stake in the company. It was the biggest investment by an individual at the time. PeopleSoft cofounder Dave Duffield also invested, even while admitting to the New York Times in 1997 that “I can’t honestly say I understand their products.”

Yet the excitement paled in comparison to theglobe.com’s stunning 1998 IPO. Though the company was still losing money, its shares skyrocketed 606 percent on their first day, the highest gain ever, until VA Linux nabbed the dubious distinction a year later (its opening day shares soared 689 percent).

Practically overnight, Paternot and Krizelman, worth a combined $150 million, were everywhere: sitting across from “Good Morning America” anchor Diane Sawyer; on “The Charlie Rose Show”; splashed across pages of Vanity Fair. In hundreds of media appearances, the rakishly handsome Paternot, in particular, was painted as a whiz kid, a wonder boy, an entrepreneurial genius worthy of admiration and envy.

And then, poof. The tech market nosedived. Shares of theGlobe plunged before Paternot or Krizelman could realize their paper gains.

Krizelman faded from slight, quietly heading to Harvard Business School. In the meantime, Paternot was fast-tracked from media darling to symbol of preposterous excess. He became a joke, and publishing a post-meltdown memoir several years later, A Very Public Offering: A Rebel’s Story of Business Excess, Success and Reckoning, only cemented his place as a punch line.

Fast forward to today, and that’s all behind Paternot, or so it seems. At 34, he says he has no plans to start a business but rather to back other entrepreneurs as the sole general partner of several mini-investment vehicles called Actarus Funds, whose investors include the friends and family who supported Paternot and Krizelman during theGlobe.com’s earliest days. (They’re probably good backers to have. Nestlé was founded by Paternot’s great-great grandfather, and his dad, long the CEO of one of the biggest temp agencies in Europe, is a wealthy private equity investor.)

On Friday, I found him in New York, where he’s currently investing a $5 million “seed stage” fund that has backed eight startups since 2006.

What’s your investing criteria?

I’ll invest anywhere up to $500,000, so it has to be first stage, first financing. And it needs to be a proven entrepreneur.

That’s funny coming from you, once a first-time entrepreneur supported by angel investors.

Well, since I’m not the one building the business, I really need to trust the team I’m betting on, and [repeat entrepreneurs] understand what it takes to build a business. There are always going to be interesting new concepts, but they often require a million course corrections, and if you have a mediocre team, you’re out of luck. Also, guys who’ve successfully built and sold a businesses are more realistic about valuations. They’re also more flexible and they get it and they know how to communicate with investors more clearly than first-time entrepreneurs.

Speaking of investors, VCs passed on the TheGlobe. What did they tell you at the time?

We met with a lot of VCs back in 1995, but they were more focused on software and operating systems and enterprise solutions. None of them understood what community was.

How ironic in 2008. Do you consider TheGlobe a predecessor to Facebook?

I think the parallels are more philosophical in terms of vision. Fundamentally, it’s about community and connecting people together. As far as execution, that concept has evolved as technology has become more sophisticated. TheGlobe’s concept was connecting people around topics of interest, movies, illnesses. It was, let’s provide them tools to self-express and self-publish. It was basically a combination of social networking and blogging as we know them today, using chat rooms and personal publishing tools.

Unlike you, Mark Zuckerberg almost never gives interviews. Savvy or pretentious?

I actually think he’s smart to keep a lower profile. The thing is, people have accepted the Internet and the value of social networking — if not fiscally quite yet, then in that intangible way that we experience it every day. Entrepreneurs can just focus on their products; they don’t have to evangelize the concepts they’re based on. Back [in the ‘90s], you sort of had to hold the torch, and explain the community and get out there and capture people’s imagination.

Facebook and its ilk are being rewarded for their focus on user growth instead of revenues. Isn’t that the same strategy that bit TheGlobe in the ass?

I definitely see some repetition. I certainly thought that a hyperinflationary valuation was happening when eBay acquired Skype [for $2.6 billion]. A lot of people argue that the potential of community and of being the first experience people have when they go online is so powerful that [Facebook] could be another Google scenario. And I agree that the revenue Facebook is generating — $250 million a year, last I read — is just the tip of the iceberg. That said, a $15 billion valuation based on that potential is a little steep by anybody’s standard.

Does your experience suggest anything about where Facebook is heading?

The Internet goes through evolutions. People couldn’t see beyond Yahoo for a long time, and suddenly there was Google. I couldn’t see what was beyond the tools that were available to me [at TheGlobe] at the time. But as markets get bigger, they fragment, then gel around more specific ideas. It will re-fragment again. I’m an active Facebook user and have loved it since using it a few years ago. But Facebook has something like 80 million users. Not everyone wants this one homogeneous experience.

Do they want the Spanish-language social networking site that you’re backing, Sonico?

Sonico has a different approach. It’s focusing on Latin America specifically and on local culture relevancy. The idea is to draw out the value of the local communities and demographics.

Another of your investments in the online invitation startup Pingg. Its invitations are gorgeous, but how can it compete against Evite when so many others have tried and — amazingly — failed?

I think competitors haven’t hit it yet because they’ve come up with these really technical solutions. The guys at Pingg came up with this really elegant solution and with less than a million dollars, they’ve built this product that plugs into OpenSocial and FaceBook and MySpace and it’s rocketing right now. It’s especially useful for political fund-raisers and charity events, which don’t use Evite because its invitations are silly are way too college-y.

Many startups in your portfolio, ike Pingg and Sonico, look like me-too companies.

Actually, in many cases, the companies I’ve invested in are replicating a successful business in a new geography. It’s proven somewhere and then imported to where you are. PayPal hasn’t set up localized offices in Latin America, so you have DineroMail, which does person-to-person payments. My first investment as a seed investor was in a ring tone company called Zingy that sold to a Japanese company [called For-Side] for $80 million. Ring tones were already very big in Europe. When my friend Fabrice Grinda started the company here [in the U.S.], the market barely existed.

Fabrice is also an investor in Sonico. Do you tend to invest with cliques of angels?

I co-invest a lot with Fabrice. We’re both backers of DineroMail and [Craigslist competitor] OLX. I like to share the risk and to do that with other entrepreneur angels, who I also like brainstorming with. [Former PayPal CEO] Peter Thiel and I are both investors in [free file hosting site] Badongo.

Are you friendly with Thiel and other Valley angels? Where do you get your deal flow?

You know, after TheGlobe, I ran as far from the Internet as I could go for a while. Todd [Krizelman] and I have never been in the inner cliques of Silicon Valley. I think in New York, there was a lot of rivalry between the Alley and the Valley. A close contact is Dan Miller, the former president of AskJeeves; he’s now an investor in Berkeley with the Roda Group. But most of my contacts are in New York or the U.K.

Last question: What did you learn about personal money management that you could share with young entrepreneurs today?

I had zero money management experience at the time. I was 24 when TheGlobe went public. I didn’t think to put anything in a bank account and diversify. My advice would be that if you’re company is worth anything, $5 million or $15 million, and you have the chance to take some money off the table, do it!

And another older piece of coverage on TechCrunch.

And for you Spanish speakers out there, here is some more international coverage on them.

http://www.cnnexpansion.com/tecnologia/2008/06/24/utilidad-el-futuro-de-la-red-social/

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/finanzas/65073.html

Keep going Rodrigo!!

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/03/latin-american-social-network-sonico-raises-43-million/
by Mark Hendrickson

Back in February Duncan described Spanish language Sonico as “the biggest social networking site you’ve probably never heard of”. At the time, Sonico had raised to an Alex rank of 167 after just 6 months in operation. And with over 8 million users, it was also a top 50 site in several Latin American countries including Colombia, El Salvador, Bolivia, and Mexico.

Fast forward about four months and Sonico has signed up almost 17 million users (although its Alex rank has dropped a bit to 297). The Argentine startup has also decided to raise its first round of institutional funding – $4.3 million from London-based DN Capital and private investors that include OLX’s Fabrice Grinda and Alec Oxenford, and FON’s Martin Varsavsky.

Sonico is among several Spanish and Portuguese-speaking social networks that have established themselves in Latin America – including Orkut, Hi5, and Wamba – but face increased competition from mainstream American social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

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