Throwback Thursday

Twenty-six years ago this month, English computer programmer and obsessive movie fan Colin (Col) Needham launched the Internet Movie Database, now known as IMDb.

With help from volunteers, the site evolved from his personal database into an Internet bulletin board with detailed records about movies, including every film Needham had seen since he was 13 (top left in photo). In 1996, IMDb conducted its first advertising campaign for the film Independence Day. It was so successful that Needham quit his job at Hewlett-Packard to work on IMDb full-time as a paid employee.

IMDb was acquired by Amazon in 1998 and remains of the most popular sites on the Internet. The site has reviews and information on nearly 4 million titles and is ranked 57th in the world and 27th in the U.S. Needham is CEO of the Amazon subsidiary and has been with the site since founding it.

Read Michael Antonoff’s 2015 post on IMDb here.