The
Internet Movie Database
(
IMDb) is an
online database of information related to
movies,
actors,
television shows, production crew
personnel,
video games, and most
recently,
fictional characters
featured in visual entertainment media. IMDb launched on October
17, 1990, and in 1998 was acquired by
Amazon.com.
Overview
The IMDb website consists of one of the largest accumulations of
data about films, television programs,
direct-to-video products, and video games,
reaching back to each medium's respective beginning. In many cases,
the information goes beyond simple title and crew credit, but also
includes data on uncredited personnel,
production and
distribution companies, plot summaries,
memorable quotes,
awards,
reviews,
box office
performance, filming locations, technical specs, promotional
content,
trivia, and links to official and
other websites. Furthermore, the IMDb tracks titles in production,
including major announced projects still in development.
The database also houses filmographies for all persons, cast and
crew, identified in listed titles. Filmographies include
biographical details, awards listings, external links, and
information about other professional work not covered by title
entries in the database such as theatrical and commercial
advertising appearances.
The IMDb also offers ancillary material such as daily movie and TV
news, weekly box office reports, TV listings, cinema showtimes,
user polls and ratings, and special features about various movie
events such as the
Academy Awards.
The website also has an active message board system. There are
message boards for each database entry, found at the bottom of each
respective page, as well as general discussion boards on various
topics.
All of the basic database information is available without
registration and without providing any personal information.
However, to submit information, to use the message boards, to
search for information about adult movies or to use some other of
the site's features requires registration. Some advanced features
require verification which can sometimes require some personal
financial information such as credit card details. IMDb has
57 million visitors, 17 million of which are registered
.
History
History before website
The IMDb originated from two lists started as independent projects
in early 1989 by participants in the
Usenet
newsgroup rec.arts.movies. In each case, a
single maintainer recorded items
emailed by
newsgroup readers, and posted updated versions of his list from
time to time. The founding ideas of the database began with a
posting titled "Those Eyes", on the subject of
actresses with beautiful eyes. Hank Driskill began
to collect a list of attractive actresses and what movies they had
appeared in, and as the size of the repeated posting grew far
beyond a normal newsgroup article, it soon became known simply as
"THE LIST". (The first code to manage this list was a
Perl program written by
Randal L. Schwartz to "invert the list", organizing
the list by movies instead of actresses.
The other project, started by Chuck Musciano, was briefly called
the "Movie Ratings List" and soon became the "Movie Ratings
Report". Musciano simply asked readers to rate movies on a scale of
one to ten, and reported on the votes. He soon began posting
"ballots" with lists of movies for people to rate, so his list also
grew quickly.
In 1990,
Col Needham collated the two
lists and produced a "Combined LIST & Movie Ratings Report".
(His first posting of the database scripts is not available.)
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 as the "Actress List". Both this and the Actors List had
been restricted to people who were still alive and working, but
retired people began to be added, and Needham also 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 the maintainers
could manage. In late 1990, the lists included almost 10,000
movies and
television series. On October 17, 1990,
Needham 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".
On the web
By 1992, 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. Later in the
year, it moved onto the
World Wide
Web (a network in its infancy back then) under the name of
Cardiff Internet Movie Database.
The database resided
on the server 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. Its management also continued to be in the hands of a
small contingent of underpaid or volunteer "section managers" who
were receiving ever-growing quantities of information on films from
around the world and across time from contributors of widely
varying levels of expertise and informational resources. Despite
the annual claims of Needham, in a year-end report newsletter to
the Top fifty contributors, that "fewer holes" must now remain for
the coming year, the amount of information still missing from the
database was vastly underestimated. Over the next few years, the
database was run on a network of
mirrors across the world with donated
bandwidth.
As an independent company
In 1995, it became obvious to the principal site managers that the
project had become too large to maintain merely through donations
and in their spare time.
The decision was made to become a commercial
venture and in 1996, IMDb was incorporated in the United Kingdom
, becoming the Internet Movie Database Ltd, with Col
Needham the primary owner as well as identified figurehead.
The section managers were offered "shares" in the company in
exchange for the amount of work-time they put in, and sometimes for
monetary donations by them. A couple of these went to work full
time for salary, which Needham had already been drawing. General
revenue for site operations was generated through advertising,
licensing and partnerships.
This state of affairs continued until 1998. The database was
growing every day, and it was again reaching a critical point in
terms of quantity of data versus number of personnel, and the need
for more full-time managers, who would of course want to be paid.
Most revenues were being spent on equipment. The system was also
suffering noticeable slowdowns both in accessing the site and in
having new data posted. Offers were solicited from academic
institutions but they were not interested; private enterprises with
interests in the entertainment industry were also solicited, and
from some of these offers were forthcoming to purchase IMDb.
However, the shareholders were unwilling to sell if it could not be
guaranteed that the information would be accessible to the internet
community for free. None of this activity was made known to the
several hundred volunteers who were contributing the vast majority
of information now incoming to IMDb.
As a subsidiary company
A screenshot of IMDbPro in June
2008
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. 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.
Volunteer contributors were not advised in advance of even the
possibility of IMDb—and their contributions along with it—being
sold to a private business, which created some initial discord and
defection of regulars.
IMDb continued to expand its functionality. In 2002, it added a
subscription service known as IMDbPro aimed at entertainment
professionals. It provides a variety of services including
production and
box
office details, as well as a company directory. Most
information contained in the IMDb database proper continues to come
from volunteer researchers.
As an additional incentive for users, as of 2003, if users are
identified as being one of "the top 100 contributors" in terms of
amounts 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 2007 to the top
175. This incentive however is for overall contribution—not
contribution on a nation by nation basis. In 2008 IMDb launched
their first official foreign language version with the German
IMDb.de.
TV episodes
On January 26, 2006, the long-awaited "Full Episode Support" came
online, allowing the database to support separate cast and crew
listings for each episode of every TV series. This was described by
Col Needham as "the largest change we've ever made to our data
model", and increased the number of titles in the database from
485,000 to nearly 755,000.
At present, the database entries for TV series are in a state of
flux, as listings are migrated from series titles to individual
episodes. The maintainers anticipated "a couple of months for data
to settle down and bugs to be ironed out", but inaccuracies were
still present one year later.
Characters filmography
On October 2, 2007 the characters filmography feature was launched.
The feature is similar to the existing title, name and company
feature, except now users can see by whom a certain character was
played and can read a biography about the character and memorable
quotes from them. All data in the characters filmography is
submitted by regular users and is largely not verified by the IMDb
staff, in contrast to most other data submitted to the site, which
is first verified and might be rejected by the staff. This lack of
oversight is acceptable, however, because very little new data is
sent in; the majority of submissions consist of existing data being
connected together.
Instant viewing
On September 15, 2008, a feature was added that enables instant
viewing of over 6,000 movies and television shows from CBS, Sony
and a number of independent film makers, with direct links from
their profiles.Due to licensing restrictions this feature is only
available to viewers in the United States.
Ancillary features
User ratings of films
As one adjunct to data, the IMDb offers a
rating scale that allows users to rate films by
choosing one of ten categories in the range 1–10, with each user
able to submit one rating. The points of reference given to users
of these categories are the descriptions "1 (awful)" and "10
(excellent)"; and these are the only descriptions of categories.
Due to the minimum category being scored one, the mid-point of the
range of scores is 5.5, rather than 5.0 as might
intuitively be expected given a maximum score of ten. This rating
system has also recently been implemented for television
programming on an episode-by-episode basis.
In adopting this method, IMDb is following its widespread usage;
the method is the same as rating in the range of a half star to
five stars. The simplicity of this method makes it popular, but in
terms of
psychometric, statistical and
other criteria, the method suffers shortcomings.
Filters and weights
IMDb indicates that submitted ratings are filtered and weighted in
various ways in order to produce a
weighted mean that is displayed for each film,
series, and so on. It states that filters are used to avoid
ballot stuffing; the method is not
described in detail to avoid attempts to circumvent it. In fact it
sometimes produces an extreme difference between the weighted
average and the arithmetic mean. For example,
Jonas Brothers: The 3D
Concert Experience is considered to be the worst film with
a weighted average of 1.3 as of March 2009, but has a rather
ordinary arithmetic mean of 4.4.
Ranking
The
IMDb Top 250 is intended to be a
listing of the top 'rated' 250 films, based on ratings by the
registered users of the website using the methods described. Only
non-documentary theatrical releases running at least forty-five
minutes with over 1300 ratings are considered; all other products
are ineligible. Also, the 'top 250' rating is based on only the
ratings of "regular voters". The exact number of votes a registered
user would have to make to be considered to be a user who votes
regularly has been kept secret. IMDb has stated that to maintain
the effectiveness of the top 250 list they
"deliberately do not
disclose the criteria used for a person to be counted as a regular
voter". In addition to other weightings, the top 250 films are
also based on a weighted rating formula referred to in
actuarial science as a
credibility
formula. This label arises because a statistic is taken to be
more credible the greater the number of individual pieces of
information; in this case from eligible users who submit ratings.
IMDb uses the following formula to calculate the weighted
rating:
- W = {Rv + Cm\over v+m}\
where:
- W\ = Weighted Rating
- R\ = average for the movie as a number from 0 to 10 (mean) =
(Rating)
- v\ = number of votes for the movie = (votes)
- m\ = minimum votes required to be listed in the Top 250
(currently 1500)
- C\ = the mean vote across the whole report (currently 6.9)
An extended listing of the Top 500 - following the same formula -
is available to IMDbPro subscribers.
The IMDb also has a Bottom 100 feature which is assembled through a
similar process although only 650 votes must be received to qualify
for the list.
The top 250 list comprises a wide strata of films, including major
releases, cult films, independent films, critically acclaimed
films, silent films and non-English language films.
Criticisms of IMDb ranking
The validity of the Top 250 has come under scrutiny. The skepticism
includes accusations of ballot-box stuffing or voting ambiguity, as
well as considerable objections about the overall placement of any
given movie in the Top 250.
Soon after its release,
WALL-E
garnered high ratings from users, eventually pushing it to #6 on
the list. Soon afterwards,
WALL-E's message board became
filled with posts from users urging others to vote it a "1", after
which its rating dropped significantly.
Another example occurred in July 2008 when
The Dark Knight temporarily took
the number one spot away from
The
Godfather. CNET's
Harrison
Hoffman theorized that the hype surrounding the movie
outweighed clear thinking, and noted that the number of "10" votes
for the film corresponded with a large number of "1" votes that
suddenly appeared in
The Godfather's voting bin (that
knocked that movie down to #3 at the time) were the markings of a
"drastic shift" that "hardly seems the work of a wise crowd." A
"mob mentality", he maintains, can "greatly skew a product of its
collective wisdom."
Dave Thomas, blogger on
E-Gear, says that he believes IMDb's Top 250 to be a
better list than
AFI's Top 100. Thomas
notes that his admiration of the "always shifting" list is because
it recognizes modern movies (giving the example of
WALL-E currently standing at #42) and mixes them
in with all-time greats which is a product of the Top 250 being
"updated every ten minutes instead of every ten years". However,
Thomas admits that the list is "imperfect", saying that users can
"cheat like crazy", further adding that there is "no guarantee
anyone who voted ever actually saw
The Dark Knight, much
less liked it."
Plot-related features and spoiler warnings
IMDb main pages for each film include one or more of the sections
titled
Plot outline,
Plot synopsis, and
Plot
keywords, and separate pages for
Plot summary and
Plot synopsis. The
Plot synopsis pages are
accessed through links that notify the reader a
spoiler may be included.
The
plot outline is a short summary of the premise with a
general overview, usually not including details that may be
considered to be spoilers. The plot outline is presented on the
main page for the film if short enough, and if it extends beyond a
couple of lines includes a "
more" link that opens to the
Plot summary page for the film.
On the
Plot summary page, IMDb includes the full text of
the
plot outline, along with the first few lines of the
plot synopsis, followed by a link to a further more
detailed page, with the link text written as
"more (warning!
contains spoilers)".
The
plot synopsis is a more complete summary of the plot
that can be edited by readers of IMDb, often including twists and
turns that some readers may consider to be spoilers and may not
want to know about if they have not yet seen the film. IMDb places
the synopsis on a separate page, with a link on the film's main
page using text that advises the reader as follows:
"View full
synopsis. (warning! may contain spoilers)". The
separate
Plot synopsis page includes the headline
"
Warning! This synopsis contains spoilers.
See plot summary for non-spoiler summarized
description."
The IMDb User's Guide advises user contributors to avoid revealing
spoilers outside of the synopsis section where they are covered by
the spoiler warning in the page headline. IMDb also provides a
spoiler warning template for use when spoilers occur in an
unexpected location, for example, according to their help page,
when a synopsis includes a spoiler for a different movie. In the
IMDb Submission Guide for the "Trivia and Goofs" page section and
for their message boards, the guide states that spoilers should be
avoided in general in those sections, but that if a spoiler is
included, it must be preceded by an announcement, such as using the
word "SPOILER:" or their provided spoiler template.
Plot keywords are keywords that contributors to the IMDb
submit. These are keywords regarding objects and occurrences in
each film on the IMDb. By adjusting one's preferences, users can
have these keywords hidden if they have not rated the film.
Otherwise, the keywords are revealed by hovering the mouse over the
hidden text.
Message boards
One of the most used features of the Internet Movie Database is the
message boards that coincide with every title (excepting, as of
2009, TV episodes) and name entry, along with forty-seven main
boards. This section is one of the more recent features of IMDb,
having its beginnings in 2001. In order to post on the message
boards, users must have their account "authenticated" via their
Amazon.com account, their cell phone, or
their credit card. Many credit card vendors will have $1 debited
from the credit card by IMDb/Amazon. As the IMDb expires older
posts from all message boards variably, it is difficult to
precisely measure traffic according to individual board, but the
Soapbox and the
Sandbox
and
Oscar Buzz are amongst the highest traffic boards on
IMDb. The Sandbox, however, has dropped significantly in traffic
since 2008.
Both the Sandbox and the Soapbox are general purpose discussion
boards, with the Sandbox intended for relatively civil discussions,
while users can go for "their more heated discussions" to the
Soapbox, though its contents are still subject to the site's Terms
and Conditions regarding language and content. Dedicated boards for
popular current films or TV shows, performers, and political
figures may also have a high usage rate. These message boards have
been known to have people who frequent them often enough to have
created a community of their own, seemingly detached from the
actual Database. One can often find personal stories and anecdotes
from board users, who may receive support from others - even in the
rugged environs of the Soapbox.
The Sandbox is a general purpose, anything-goes board designated for test messages and off-topic posts.
Content and format
Sources of data
While IMDb has come to be recognized as the world's most
comprehensive source of film data, many non-contributing users are
unaware of the means by which information is added to the database.
IMDb essentially accepts data submissions from any individual who
acquires a login and submits information using the site's
submission pages. This information is then reviewed by an IMDb data
manager, who decides whether or not 1.) to post the information on
the website; 2.) to send the submitting party an email requesting
further documentation or clarification; or 3.) to ignore or set the
submission aside indefinitely. Although IMDb's data managers are
presumably knowledgeable in at least some aspects of film history,
they are not, per se, more knowledgeable about the information they
are processing than those who have submitted it (and in many cases
- particularly when dealing with more obscure areas - are almost
certainly less knowledgeable). IMDb's data managers rarely engage
in primary research in the effort to verify submissions: the data
managers' most common form of verification involves web-based
resources, a serious limitation given the vast amount of
information that has yet to be made available on the internet and
given the high level of erroneous, questionable and poorly
documented data that circulates there. As a result, in recent years
IMDb has essentially refused to accept new submissions for titles
of a historical nature the existence of which cannot be easily
verified through web-based channels, excluding thousands of lesser
known features and shorts. By the same token, since IMDb employs no
formal method for determining the credentials of the individual
submitting information, it is entirely possible for the site's
managers 1.) to accept faulty information from a misinformed
source, or 2.) to refuse well-documented information from a
qualified researcher whose sources are not currently accessible via
the internet. In a kind of methodological Catch-22, the surest way
to ensure information is accepted by IMDb is to first make it
available through other (often) less reliable and less rigorous
web-based channels.
Given IMDb's long-range commitment to open and democratic data
collection, over time it is more rather than less likely that
correct, reliable data will prevail on the site and that dubious
and erroneous data (of a non-malicious nature) will be discounted.
There is little guarantee, however, that films of a historical
nature not currently reflected in the database will find a means of
admission given the site's current methodology.
Copyright issues
All volunteers who contribute content to the database technically
retain
copyright to their contributions
but the compilation of the content becomes the exclusive property
of IMDb with the full right to copy, modify, and sublicense it.
Credit is not given on specific title or filmography pages to the
contributor(s) who have provided information (giving the impression
that it is generally the work of Col Needham and his small staff of
"data managers"). Conversely, a credited text entry, such as a plot
summary, may be "corrected" for content, grammar, sentence
structure, perceived omission or error, by other contributors
without having to add their names as co-authors.Due to the process
of having submitted data or text reviewed by a section manager,
IMDb is different from database projects like
Wikipedia or
Openstreetmap, contributors cannot add,
delete, or modify the data or text at their whim, and the
manipulation of data is controlled by IMdb technology and salaried
staff. The advantage is, there is less incentive for vandals to
attack the system, although incidents have been reported. The fact
that the primary qualification for section managers is their
knowledge of programming, rather than film or the parts of film
with which they deal, also allows for addition of misinformation,
urban legend, rumor and human error by relative novices.
A Wiki alternative to IMDb is
omdb (Open Media Database) whose content is also
contributed by users but licensed under
CC-by
and the
GFDL. Since 2007, IMDb has been
experimenting with wiki-programmed sections for complete film
synopses, and FAQs about titles as determined by (and answered by)
individual contributors, without any management oversight
whatsoever, with mixed results.
Foreign-language films
Although the IMDb is written completely in English (but does have
other versions in
Brazilian Portuguese,
Finnish,
French,
German,
Hungarian,
Italian,
Polish,
Portuguese,
Romanian and
Spanish), the
IMDb lists the titles of foreign-language films in their original
country-of-origin language, Romanized if not originally in the
Latin script. Users in other countries must look at the AKA (Also
Known As) list to find the title used in their
country on the title's page, although a search by
the AKA will find the film.
Conversely, on IMDb Pro, the American-language titles for
non-American films released in the USA become the primary titles
for such films, with the original-language title stored as an
AKA.
See also
References
External links
Wikis
Quiz
Facts
Map
Timeline
Search
