How British film enthusiast became digital media baron

How British film enthusiast became digital media baron - Technology - International Herald Tribune: "As the founder and managing director of the Internet Movie Database, Needham might just be the archetype of the telecommuting Web-head. The site that he founded and runs, www.imdb.com, ranks as the 10th most popular entertainment spot online, according to ComScore Media Metrix. It had 18.6 million unique visitors in April, up 67 percent from a year earlier.

Today, IMDB makes money from advertising, selling publicity photos, licensing content, selling movie tickets through partners and offering a premium IMDB Pro service, which was started in 2002.

For $99 a year, IMDB Pro subscribers get granular access to all kinds of industry data, like movie budgets and details about films in production. By chronicling everyone who ever worked on a film, the service has become a de facto directory of just about everyone from key grips to producers, actors and directors.

As for his own fortunes, a clue is found in the original announcement of IMDB's acquisition in April 1998. It said IMDB and two separate European businesses had been bought mostly for Amazon shares then worth close to $55 million. Though it is impossible to know how the shares were divided among the three companies, the shares would be worth about $213 million now."