He’s the founder and managing director of the tenth most popular entertainment site online. Yet Col Needham drives a Toyota and shuns fancy watches and designer clothes. His only indulgence? A collection of 7,500+ DVDs. Col Needham works for IMDB.
The New York Times is running an intimate look at the media exec, an unsuspecting Brit who launched the site in 1990 with some movie geek friends.
Since then the site has become the cinematic equivalent of a cash cow, with money pouring in through advertising, subscription servies and affiliate deals as well as a lively social networking component.
In addition to quizzing Needham, Reporter Richard Siklos provides some interesting insights on the future of IMDB, particularly as it relates to partnerships with the major search engines. Here’s a clip:
“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.”
Read the entire article here on CNET.
In related news, Swedish bit torrent site The Pirate Bay is back in action after being shut down last week. BetaNews has the report.
