There’s yet another online social film marketplace (like virtual souks without having to deal with any funky smells) that “hit the stands” today. Based on the connecting-filmmakers-to-fans-to-sell-your-film model, IndieGoGo’s site already features projects by Irena Salina (her Flow: For Love of Water is Sundance-bound), Yung Chang (his Up the Yangtze is also Sundance-bound, and deservedly so, I might add), M dot Strange, Lance Weiler and Beth Murphy. Not a bad start.

Today, out of Berkeley, California (not a bad spot), the company announced their official launch to the press. You can check out the site here.

From their news release: “Founded on the principles of opportunity, transparency, choice, and action, IndieGoGo addresses the fundraising challenges and market inefficiencies affecting independent filmmaking today. IndieGoGo enables this ‘filmocracy’ by providing filmmakers an open platform to pitch their projects to the world, and gives the fans a vehicle to experience and influence the once inaccessible world of filmmaking.” That word “influence” or the idea of the “insider fan” will prove to be the most interesting part of all this, as we study the impact of these new sites and how effective they purport to become at providing the kinds of services that will enable some kind of financial self-support for the artist.

From DIY (do-it-yourself) to DIWO (do-it-with-others–admittedly sounding a lot more fun), the world wide web is busy making the sticky stuff of which webs are made to strengthen its heft and broaden its scope for meaningful communication and commerce on the Internet.

The company was founded by Slava Rubin, Danae Ringelmann and Eric Schell, each with backgrounds in marketing strategy, entertainment finanace and software development, respectively (not bad skill-sets). Their advisory list is quite impressive and their beta phase seems to have been substantial. After all, their first showcase project was selected to world premiere at Sundance (Salina’s new doc).

Rubin will be at the Sundance fest representing the company on the “Going It Alone: Digital Distribution for Indie Filmmakers” panel at the New Frontier on Main Microcinema on Wednesday, January 23 at 12:30 p.m. in Park City.