A lot of media has been floating around of some of the panels that kept me on the road in March, digging deep into the topic of alternate reality gaming. Microphones, video cameras and sharp minds make for almost as if you were there coverage of some of these. I'd start with ARG! The Attack of the Alternate Reality Games at SXSW via audio podcast, meant as a moderately advanced overview with savvy set of audience questions. Then dive into the deeper end of the pool with ARGFest 2007 panels like Defining ARGs and the Future of ARG, Developing an ARG, and I'm a WHATmaster? in text and video from ARGN. I met so many interesting and wonderful people on that extended junket, but a special thanks goes out to the brilliant panelists you end up seeing, including Dan Hon, Evan Jones, Brooke Thompson, Alice Taylor, Adrian Hon, Jane McGonigal, Sean Stacey, Adam Brackin, Jan Libby, Dave Szulborski, Miles Beckett, Greg Goodfried and Glenn Rubenstein.

A few weeks back, our friends at Kodak helped us in throwing a 10th birthday party for indieWIRE on the night of the Gotham's awards in New York City. The theme was black and white: Chris here at GMD Studios put together a silent movie featuring black and white shots from indieWIRE over the last decade that looped on the wall upstairs, black and white film was being projected in the basement where DJ Mark Rabinowitz held court, and now you can also see the results of handing out hundreds of Kodak black and white cameras (trust me, it's almost like having been there.) Look for some of the best photos to start showing up in iPop. Recognize someone or think you took that picture? Pop up a comment on the photo in Flickr! Meanwhile, on Thursday indieWIRE will release their most comprehensive critics' poll ever -- so look for our salvo in the best picture, best director and best performance debates.

If you get called out in both MeFi and ARGN, you can imagine what the emails behind the scenes look like. People seem to keep pointing their fingers in direction of some previous co-horts and us, looking for someone to pin the Lonelygirl15 phenomenon on (this was part of that cause, most likely.) Strange that people didn't sense Lonelygirl15 was fiction sooner, but even stranger to be accused of someone else's work.

Eugene reminds us that today is indieWIRE's tenth birthday (we're as old as MSNBC!) He's got a great article up about the last decade in independent film that indieWIRE has witnessed. We'll make a bigger deal of our milestone later, but ten years as self-reliant web news outlet is something to be proud of.

Seems like you can't throw a rock around here and not hit another anniversary, this time the 9th birthday of indieWIRE (which by Eugene's estimate means today's issue of indieWIRE:Daily is #2,340.)

A year ago, Eugene rediscovered Issue #1 of indieWIRE:Daily from 1996, and the headlines then were:

Today (for posterity) the headlines were:

• 5 Questions for Lori Silverbush & Michael Skolnik, Directors of "On The Outs"

• indieWIRE SHORTS: SXSW Click, Media That Matters, Duke City Shootout and More

• indieWIRE's Weekly Guide for July 15-21
  

Happy birthday, guys!

A year ago, we were explaining to people how the relaunch of a 6-year-old-brand as a blogging community would be explosive. Now it's a year later, and ReveNews has shown spectacular growth and a new high in influence among marketers by thinking of itself as a community instead of a publication. Happy kinda sorta relaunch anniversary, ReveNews!

Evil genius Dave Szulborski has been one of our secret weapons in "The Art of the Heist" on the puzzle front. At ARGFest NYC (the conference I'm most looking forward to this year) he'll also be moderating a panel of some of the key people behind the experience. Hearing similar panels (and hopefully lots of informal chatter) from 4orty2wo Entertainment and Mind Candy is even more exciting.

Using my little platform at ReveNews where marketers and brand managers lurk to talk more about the theory and measurement of conversational marketing. It will take me a couple of weeks to spool out all the thinking, but should make an interesting case study on the theories (and how they come into practice on "The Art of the Heist". It will also give me a chance to write about how some interesting friends play into the process.

Amazing to think about, but today is the 10th anniversary of our incorporation of GMD Studios (which was a little ways into our work, but who's counting.) We're putting the finishing touches on the new Tin section of the site to celebrate, where we'll be presenting tributes to ten of our most favorite projects in the first ten years.

And this year we'd like gifts! The appropriate traditional gift for 10th anniversaries is tin or aluminum (which should appeal to our friends' sense of cheapness spunky independence.) Since this is all a game anyway, I promise we'll take photos of the gifts we receive to share here on the site -- so impress us with your creativity and sense of humor.

I'm becoming way too familiar with Jet Blue Flight 80 from Orlando to New York. At least I haven't had the travel problems the indieWIRE guys had getting to France, where they are hanging working at the Cannes Film Festival. Even there, you cannot escape George Lucas: