這篇紐約時報的報導
真是好文章
為什麽台灣的報紙 都看不到這種水準的報導

原來IMdb的成立 也只是一種熱情和偶然而已
多數讓人欽佩的事物
開端多是微不足道者
是無法經過特殊設計和精密操控的

因為人家是報導"應該要報的",不是報"想要爆的"
這篇文章很好,感謝樓主介紹
希望我也能有主角的熱情...

推一下...
想不到由來是這樣子的!

希望IMDB可以繼續維持低調,好好的經營
希望以後可以有官方中文網站...
我的小小希望啊...

以前不必註冊就可以看 Message Boards
現在要註冊
有點不方便
不過還是最常去 IMDB
感覺資料還是比 Amazon 多

我最怕 加值服務 了

那表示即將將使用IMDB的人分成兩種
一種是有交錢的 一種是沒交錢的
沒交錢的使用者將來大概只能看到陽春資訊了????

原文
BRISTOL, England--The closest that Col Needham gets to corporate life is the Dilbert calendar in his neat office--a converted bedroom in a quaint house in the ancient village of Stoke Gifford, a suburb of Bristol, the harbor city that is 90 minutes west of London by train.

As the founder and managing director of the Internet Movie Database, Needham might just be the archetype of the telecommuting Web-head. The site he founded and runs ranks as the 10th-most-popular entertainment spot online, according to ComScore Media Metrix. It had 18.6 million unique visitors in April, a 67 percent surge from a year earlier.

In Stoke Gifford, Needham works solo--without even an assistant--but is in constant contact by instant message with other employees scattered across the globe and at the Seattle headquarters of Amazon.com, which acquired the business eight years ago. "Everybody assumes that we have a massive office complex on Wilshire Boulevard," Needham said with a grin. "I always say, 'We're headquartered on the Internet.' "

Needham, a boyish, closely shorn 39-year-old walked to the kitchen, put on the kettle and made tea. Part of what makes him a curiosity--beyond his enviable work setup--is that Internet Movie Database, or Imdb for short, has become a classic example of a hobby that turns out to be a powerful media asset. For years, it has quietly gone about its business almost entirely separately from its parent, and only subtly does it encourage users to go to the Amazon site to buy videos.

"We didn't sit down and think, 'What's the best way to make money on the Internet?' " Needham said. "This is very much a labor of love. When we started the company, there was no commercial use of the Internet."

Even so, Imdb's convergence moment may soon be at hand, say studio executives who have worked with Amazon on developing a download service that could let people burn DVDs on their desktops. Though Amazon and Needham decline to talk about plans, Imdb could play a more prominent role in the retailer's media strategy. Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Brothers are all involved in the project, executives close to the project have said.

Several weeks ago, one media executive who had been briefed on Amazon's strategy but did not want to be identified because it was still being formulated, pointed out one aspect of Imdb's popularity: if you use search engines to look for the title of virtually any past movie or television show, or the names of celebrities from those realms, Imdb often comes up as the first result.

In the retail business, that is the equivalent of excellent shelf frontage, or, in television, of having a single-digit channel number rather than being relegated to Channel 284 on the cable lineup.

There are glimpses of a grander media plan beyond Imdb. For instance, Amazon has quietly built up its own www.a9.com search engine, which places more emphasis on displaying results in multiple media formats than bigger rivals like Google and Yahoo. But even if Amazon's foray into downloading fizzles, Imdb holds its own. Its climb also provides some interesting lessons for burgeoning digital media barons.

Internet Movie Database began in 1990 as a bulletin board database of movie credits. It was started by Needham and some film-buff friends. At the time, Needham was working as an engineer in Bristol at Hewlett-Packard (or, as he says in his native Manchester lilt, "Hewlett Pa-Cod") and had only a rudimentary strategy for financing the site.

By 1998, the database had established itself as a favorite on the early Internet, and Needham was amused to receive a number of buyout approaches.

One was an invitation to a London hotel in January to meet with Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. Bezos told Needham that he thought the movie database could help Amazon sell VHS cassettes and DVDs-- Needham points out that it was in that order in those days--but also recognized that the site would need to be run separately to maintain its personality. Amazon, of course, could handle the technological end and pour resources into upgrades.

Today, Imdb makes money a variety of ways: from advertising, selling publicity photos, licensing its content, selling movie tickets through partners and offering a premium Imdb Pro service (started in 2002). For $99 a year, Imdb Pro subscribers get granular access to all kinds of industry data, like movie budgets and details about films in production. By chronicling everyone who ever worked on a film, the service has become a de facto directory of most everyone from key grips to producers, actors and directors.

Its most clever feature is probably the Starmeter and Movimeter ratings, which gauge the popularity of people and films, based on search topics. To no one's surprise, Audrey Tautou was No. 1 last week on the Starmeter, up from No. 215 early last year, when she joined the cast of "The Da Vinci Code."

Like the social networking sites that are now so popular in media, Imdb has found that much of its success is built on the participation of site visitors. Last year, Needham said, its users submitted information to the database 16 million times, adding minutiae like what commercials Hollywood actors have performed in abroad, or what video games they have done voice-overs for.

When its users are not adding information, they are perusing--or debating and challenging--material related to the 787,000 film, television and video game titles detailed on the site. One can learn, for example, that while Jennifer Grey played Jeanie in the film "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986), Jennifer Aniston played Jeanie in the TV series "Ferris Bueller" (1990).

Those submissions are then monitored--vetted is too strong a word--by a team of editors who take their entertainment geekdom seriously. Any factual mistakes they may not find on their own are usually brought to their attention by users, who also make frequent accusations that some Hollywood wannabes who submit their biographies to the site are padding their resumes.

In Needham's office, the only visible connection to Amazon is a separate laptop that has a secure feed to the company's internal server in Seattle. On the wall is a gift from Bezos: a framed original poster of "Vertigo," Needham's favorite film.

While Needham is thrilled to talk about the business, he is reticent about giving too many details. He does say that the company is profitable, that there are more than 50 employees and that they are in the United States, Britain, Switzerland and Germany. At Imdb, he says repeatedly that "the customer is the celebrity," and that the company is not.

As for his own fortunes, a clue is found in the original announcement of Imdb's acquisition in April 1998. It said Imdb and two separate European businesses were bought mostly for Amazon shares then worth close to $55 million. Though it is impossible to know how the shares were divided among the three companies, the shares would be worth roughly $213 million now.

For his part, Needham dresses like a regular guy, and he drives a Toyota to take me to the train station. But it does turn out that the house in Stoke Gifford is actually just his former home; it now serves only as offices for him and his wife, although it retains all the furnishings, including his daughters' bunk beds.

The Needhams live in what he calls their "dream house" about 15 minutes away. It is there that Needham keeps his prized possession: an ever-growing collection of 7,500 films, mostly DVDs.

Asked whether someday it would all be digital, with his collection floating on a hard drive, Needham thought not: "I like to kick the tires of things I own."

95年剛接觸網路時就無意逛到IMDB
當時有很多電影相關的網站到最後最終極的完整資料還是要連到IMDB
IMDB才得以那麼壯大

這樣的龐大的資料庫真的不簡單
即使中文的那個IMDB可能也沒有這樣的能耐
把一些阿狗阿貓有名無名的網站全部資料化
看完故事原來創造人是英國人
難怪IMDB有英國站
不過我還是搞不清楚英國站和美國佔有啥差異

感謝樓主提供這樣的報導
這是網海茫茫很難尋得的知識

號稱台灣版的IMDB
True電影情報入口網
http://www.truemovie.com/