Internet has been around for so long that some sites occur "silver" anniversaries. October 17 celebrated 25 years since the founding of Internet Movie Database . This site is a favorite film fans started its journey in the usenet-groups, and now remains the most comprehensive database of films and one of the most visited Internet resources in the world.
In 1990 it all started with a post in one of the groups usenet'a «rec.arts.movies» titled "Oh, those eyes," in which a programmer Colin Needham [ Colin Needham ] collected his little list of actresses with beautiful eyes. People picked up the idea and started to post their lists of movies and actors made up to your preference. Gradually the idea began to turn into a kind of database, where different people were different lists (list of actors, the list of directors, etc.).
By the end of the year there were already lists more than 10,000 movies and TV series, with cross-references to those employed in these actors and directors. October 17, 1990 Needham posted to the group he developed a set of scripts that allows you to search the typed lists. Although it was not the site, and the name of this collection «rec.arts.movies movie database» this date is considered the beginning of activities IMDb.
In 1993, Needham issued data and scripts in a full-fledged site. The site has been written and is still working on the Perl-scripts. Site Programmer managed using the chosen assistants, and to supplement and correct the database could everybody users. In 1996, Needham officially registered and issued the company as a commercial company.
Support for the team who worked on the site, carried out by selling advertising on its pages, but to the 98 th year, it became clear that this is not enough for normal operation, and Needham sold the site of Jeff Bezos at Amazon.
Conditions of sale was to maintain control over the management of the programmer and his faithful team, whose members were finally able to devote himself entirely to work on the site. Amazon has had an opportunity to advertise forbidding presented in store films and other products related to the film industry.
In 2002 appeared the service IMDbPro, designed for professionals in the film industry. This was announced at one of the major events industry, the film festival "Sundance". IMDbPro includes more information about the members of the film industry, including contacts film companies, managers and agents.
In 2006, the base for the television series was supplemented by the possibility of a separate list of information for each of the episodes. In recognition Needham, it was the biggest change in the data model in the history of the project. The number stored in the database works immediately jumped from 485,000 to 755,000.
In 2008, the site launched the first version in another language, the German IMDb.de
One of the most popular features of the website is to work with the rating of the film. The final score is calculated by a special scheme in which the votes "regular voters" registered users. A specific mechanism for determining the regularity of specially kept secret. The site supports many lists of the best films, including the main «Top 250", which for many years Championship keeps the movie "The Shawshank Redemption».
In 2015, the site lists over 3, 4 and 6 million works, 7 million people employed in the industry. The site registered more than 60 million users. He is constantly in the top 50 most visited sites on the Internet according to Alexa.