The Internet Movie Database, more commonly referred to as IMDb, is a database of the film and television industry containing information on motion pictures, television productions, actors, producers, directors, fictional movie/TV characters and cinematographic crew personnel. It has functioned as an online database since October 17. 1990.

IMDb was originated by Col Needham, who in 1990 had already amassed a personal list of films and associated film data and combined it with a list created by Chuck Musciano which contained data of movie quality reviews gathered from newsgroup readers.

On October 17, 1990 a database consisting of 10,000 entries of films and television series with a user search function was posted on the Usenet newsgroup originally known as the' 'Rec.Arts.Movies Movie Database.

In 1993, using the servers from Cardiff University, Needham placed the expanding database on the internet. In January of 1996, the database was formally launched as a commercial website with the IMDb.com domain name.

In April of 1998, IMDb.com was purchased by Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com as a vehicle to promote and draw traffic to its music, video and DVD online store. IMDb is currently still owned by Amazon, but its structure and internal operations are managed as an independent website.

Operating as an independent subsidiary of Amazon, in 2002 IMDb incorporated a subscription service known as IMDbPro. This augmented service is geared towards professionals in the film industry, containing data related to box office revenue and production details.

Instant viewing of over 6,000 films and television episodes became available on IMDb as of September of 2008. The feature allows users to access a particular selection directly from the IMDb website and receive a video stream from Hulu, Sony, CBS and select independent filmmakers.http://news.cnet.com/8301-13515_3-10042280-26.html?tag=mncol