After over a year of development, we’re pleased to announce that the VODO alpha is now ready for launch in May. We’re just fixing a couple of last-minute bugs, but we will be going live in the next two to three weeks.

The year of development has given us a chance to engage with a lot (if not all) of the people we want to be involved in the VODO Distribution Coalition. So far we have spoken in detail to Mininova, The Pirate Bay, Isohunt, MyBittorrent, TorrentFreak, Vuze, Miro and Frostwire. All of them have been fantastically supportive of VODO, and we’re delighted to say that they’ll all be involved in the project. That is a big, big win for creators signing up with us, who will gain an unprecedented reach in terms of audience. Over time, we’re going to figure out the many ways in which that audience will support and sustain the artists they love.

On the content side, we’ve got six great films from the Channel 4 British Documentary Film Foundation (BritDoc), and we’re getting together the jurors to pick the first film to push out through these P2P networks.

As I write this, I’m listening to a discussion at SXSW amongst producer Ted Hope, filmmaker Lance Weiler, PTTP conference organizer and producer Liz Rosenthal, technologist Brian Chirls, outreach guru Caitlin Boyle, filmmaker Brett Gaylor, producer and Filmmaker Mag editor Scott Macaulay, and Scott Kirsner. While they briefly discuss VODO, they discuss a lot of the factors surrounding the project and facing filmmakers and creators right now.

One thing that came up is the question of ‘friction’ — would VODO be asking people to donate before downloading works? The answer is, of course, no! When our network promotes a new film, the marketing will lead straight to the download. No friction. If you want to donate, you can decide to do so at any point, but the download isn’t conditional on that.

We’re really excited to be at this stage Spring 2009 and we’re excited to see other models developing that will be complimentary, alternative or competitive with ours: we’re committed to growing this new space. We’re also wishing flattr.com the best of luck with their launch: we’re hoping to integrate their payment system into VODO in the really near future!