History before website
IMDb originated from an on-paper list started as a hobby by an English film fan Col Needham in early 1987. Although many fans maintained such lists, IMDb began with a usenet posting that Needham had entitled "Those Eyes", about actresses with beautiful eyes. Others with similar interests soon responded with additions or different lists of their own. On October 17, 1990, Needham, a professional computer programmer not affiliated with the visual media except by avocation, posted a simple software package to the USENET newsgroup rec.arts.movies, which allowed others of that group to create and search a basic movie and TV database. The original database was built from the lists of credits that Needham and two other readers had begun to publish on the rec.arts.movies group. Other film fans began to participate in the collection of data on the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.
Needham soon started a (male) "Actors List", while Dave Knight began a "Directors List", and Andy Krieg took over "THE LIST", which would later be renamed the "Actress List". Both lists had been restricted to people who were alive and working, but soon retired people were added, so Needham started what was then (but did not remain) a separate "Dead Actors/Actresses List". The goal now was to make the lists as inclusive as possible. By late 1990, the lists included almost 10,000 movies and television series correlated with actors and actresses appearing therein.
On October 17, 1990, Needham developed and posted a collection of Unix shell scripts which could be used to search the four lists, and the database that would become the IMDb was born. At the time, it was known as the "rec.arts.movies movie database", but by 1993 had been moved out of the usenet group as an independent website underwritten by Needham and his colleagues. Users were invited to contribute data which they may have collected and verified, on a volunteer basis, which greatly increased the amount and types of data to be stored. Entire new sections were added. As the site grew exponentially, full production crews, uncredited performers and other demographic data were added. Needham's group allowed some advertising to support ongoing operations of the site, including the hiring of full-time paid data managers. All the primary staff came (and still come) from the burgeoning computer industry and/or training schools and not extensive expertise in the visual media. In 1998, unable to secure sufficient funding from limited advertising, contributions and unable to raise support from the visual media industries or academia, Needham sold the IMDb to Amazon.com, on condition that its operation would remain in the hands of Needham and his small cadre of managers, who soon were able to move into full-time paid staff positions.
[edit] On the web
The database had been expanded to include additional categories of filmmakers and other demographic material, as well as trivia, biographies, and plot summaries; the movie ratings had been properly integrated with the list data; and a centralized email interface for querying the database had been created by Alan Jay. Later in the year it moved onto the World Wide Web (a network in its infancy at that time) under the name of Cardiff Internet Movie Database. The database resided on the servers of the computer science department of Cardiff University in the UK. Rob Hartill was the original web interface author. In 1994 the email interface was revised to accept the submission of all information, meaning that people no longer had to email the specific list maintainer with their updates. However, the structure remained that information received on a single film was divided among multiple section managers, the sections being defined and determined by categories of film personnel and the individual filmographies contained therein. Over the next few years, the database was run on a network of mirrors across the world with donated bandwidth.
The website is Perl-based.[4] As of May 2011, the site has been filtered in China for more than one year, although many users address it through proxy server or by VPN.[5]
On October 17, 2010 IMDb launched original video (www.imdb.com/20) in celebration of its 20th anniversary.[6]
[edit] As an independent company
In 1996 IMDb was incorporated in the United Kingdom, becoming the Internet Movie Database Ltd.[7] Founder Col Needham became the primary owner as well as the identified figurehead. General revenue for site operations was generated through advertising, licensing and partnerships.
[edit] As Amazon.com subsidiary
In 1998, Jeff Bezos, founder, owner and CEO of Amazon.com, struck a deal with Col Needham and other principal shareholders to buy IMDb outright and attach it to Amazon as a subsidiary, private company.[8] This gave IMDb the ability to pay the shareholders salaries for their work, while Amazon.com would be able to use the IMDb as an advertising resource for selling DVDs and videotapes.
IMDb continued to expand its functionality. On January 15, 2002 it added a subscription service known as IMDbPro, aimed at entertainment professionals. IMDbPro was announced and launched at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. It provides a variety of services including film production and box office details, as well as a company directory.
As an additional incentive for users, as of 2003, if users are identified as being one of "the top 100 contributors" of hard data submitted, they receive complimentary free access to IMDbPro for the following calendar year; for 2006 this was increased to the top 150 contributors, and for 2010 to the top 250.[9] In 2008 IMDb launched their first official foreign language version with the German IMDb.de. Additionally in 2008 IMDb acquired two other companies. Withoutabox and Box Office Mojo.
In 2011 IMDb was sued by an unknown actress for more than US$1 million due to IMDb revealing her age (40). The actress claims that revealing her age could cause her to lose acting opportunities.[10] A federal judge in Seattle dismissed the lawsuit, saying the actress had no grounds to proceed with an anonymous complaint. She re-filed and so revealed that the complainant is a Huong Hoang of Texas, who uses the stage name Junie Hoang.[11]