A Bristol boy done good

[this is a blog-off with Andy Parkhouse. Damn, he just won. Doesn't matter, Col just gave a shout out to us Bristol folks from the stage. Am glad I didn't have to cheer on my own]

Col Needham, 42, ex HP Labs, Bristol resident and creator of imdb is giving a film/interactive 'conversation'. Yes that's right, the two worlds can cross over at SXSW. Occasionally.

imdb pre-dates the internet. A film buff and early geek, Col first started programming in hex. He also once watched Alien every day for two weeks and kept a film diary of what he was watching, including which films had the most attractive actresses. He really is a very sweet and unassuming man. You can't get cross with him for that.

His paper film diary eventually became the database behemoth that is imdb, via an early newsgroup with community contributions. At the end of 1990 there were 10,000 titles in the newsgroup database but it wasn't until 1993 that the first imdb website was launched. After being  interviewed by The New York Times they dreamed of the day they might be able to employ someone to help with the site.

Back in those olden days, a profitable internet company funded by advertising was pretty much unheard of. Col and his business partner incorporated and launched the new version of imdb at the oscars in 1996. The day they incorporated was the first time he had met his business partner in person. The database fitted on a 4GB disk which they fedexed to their server in Wisconsin.

They are now owned by the Amazon Group and have more than 1.3 million titles. At the moment they are most excited by a) their video platform which will seek to stick a (legal) play button on every single one of them and b) a film festivals submission platform.  They won't tell how many employees they have (four on top of a chip shop on Gloucester Road?) but they have 250,000 unpaid contributers.

Btw, according to the IMDB starmeter, Andy Parkhouse (founder of Rubberducks) is 75% down in popularity this week. It must be that cowboy hat.