Col Needham

Colin Needham (born 26 January 1967)[1] is a British computer engineer who is known as the founder and CEO of IMDb.[2] He has been general manager of IMDb since its acquisition by Amazon in 1998.[3][4]

Col Needham
Needham in 2002
Born (1967-01-26) 26 January 1967
Denton, Lancashire, England
Alma materUniversity of Leeds (BSc)
Occupation(s)Founder, CEO, and general manager of IMDb
Spouse
Karen (nee Gaskin) Needham
​
​
(m. 1989)​
Children2

Early life

Needham was born in Denton, Lancashire,[1] and grew up on Stockport Road. He attended Audenshaw School and Clarendon Sixth Form College in Hyde. He graduated from the University of Leeds with a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science in 1988.[5]

Career

IMDb was started in 1990 while Needham was working as an engineer in Bristol at Hewlett-Packard (HP).[1] The site evolved from what was initially his personal movie database, which became an internet bulletin board made from simple records, kept on a succession of early computers and contributed to by several persons, all of whom Needham outlasted.

By the summer of 1996, thanks to IMDb's first film-related advertising campaign (for Independence Day), Needham had quit HP to work on IMDb full-time as a paid employee.[6][7] In 1999, he collected two Webby Awards for IMDb.[8] In February 2017, Needham decided to remove the message boards from IMDb, stating that the message boards "are no longer providing a positive, useful experience for the vast majority of our more than 250 million monthly users worldwide".[9]

Personal life

Needham married Karen Gaskin in 1989. They have twin daughters and live in Filton, Gloucestershire. He is a fan of early 20th-century classical Russian composers, particularly Dmitri Shostakovich.[1][10]

References
  1. Siklos, Richard (28 May 2006). "From a Small Stream, a Gusher of Movie Facts". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 October 2009.
  2. "Col Needham Biography". IMDb. Retrieved 18 October 2012.
  3. Col Needham at IMDb
  4. Shoard, Catherine (12 May 2013). "Six degrees of IMDb founder Col Needham This man has seen 8,524 movies. How does he know? Because he invented the Internet Movie Database – the indispensable cinema encyclopaedia – and put Bristol on Hollywood's map". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 14 May 2013.
  5. Glendinning, Amy. "I am IMDb: The millionaire film geek from Denton behind the world's top movie website". Retrieved 26 October 2014.
  6. Finke, Nikki (5 August 2004). "Do You IMDb?". L.A. Weekly. Retrieved 19 October 2009.
  7. "Col Needham's user profile – Internet Movie Database". IMDb. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
  8. "3rd Annual Webby Awards Nominees & Winners". Webby Awards. Retrieved 19 October 2009.
  9. "IMDb shuts down its message boards".
  10. "Biography for Col Needham". IMDb. May 2012. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
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