============================================= THE INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE MONTH-IN-REVIEW - JANUARY 1999 ============================================= TO UNSUBSCRIBE from this newsletter, send a blank message to... newsletter-unsubscribe@mlists.imdb.com ...*not* newsletter@imdb.com. TO SUBSCRIBE, register with the IMDb and select the option to join the newsletter mailing list or send a blank message to... newsletter-subscribe@mlists.imdb.com ================= INTRODUCTION ================= Welcome to the Internet Movie Database's monthly newsletter, with a new year, a new site design, and a new senior editor, we thought we'd re-vamp the newsletter a bit. It may not be the old format you're used to, but we'll make sure we get you all the pertinent data each and every month. We apologize that we weren't able to put this out during Q4 1998, but we think you'll find it was worth the wait. IN THIS ISSUE: - NOT TOO LATE TO VOTE! - ABOUT THE REDESIGN - IMDb AND THE AMAZON VIDEO STORE - BEST AND WORST FILMS OF 1998 - USERS FIND "COOL TODAY" VERY COOL - NEW STAFF - IMDb DVD SECTION - ANNOUNCE MAIL HIGHLIGHTS - IMDb IN THE NEWS - DATABASE STATISTICS - ABOUT THE IMDb ============================== NOT TOO LATE TO VOTE! ============================== Though it's almost embarrassing how we've dominated our category at past Webby Awards presentations, we're not embarrassed yet. We're nominated for another and we want it. You can help by casting your vote at... http://www.webbyawards.com/peoples/register.phtml Also, amazon.com is up for best commerce site. We'd really rather not have them resent us if we win and they don't, so please help preserve our jobs and vote for them too. :-) ============================== ABOUT THE REDESIGN ============================== The redesign of the IMDb's web site interface has been a topic of a lot of discussion, both among our users and our staff. Some folks love the fact that we've gotten rid of the old mass of icons at the top of each page, some people miss them like an old friend who left town and hasn't written. Overall, the reception of the redesign among both our users and the media has been positive. The look is cleaner, crisper, and more professional. Plus we had a chance to rearrange and reorganize how we present the data we catalog. The main critique from those who preferred the old design was "why did you fix something that wasn't broken?" To that we have to say "wasn't broken" is a matter of opinion. The old design evolved over a number of years, piecemeal, adding parts here and there as we enlarged the size and scope of the database. But as any professional Microsoft basher knows, this is as bad a way to build a web site as it is to build an operating system. Like each successive iteration of Windows gets more and more bloated with legacy code and new features, our pages were getting bloated. Some pages could be in the hundreds of kilobytes with such a huge mass of icons at the top that we were becoming the Internet Movie Datawait. We stepped back, pulled all the parts off, and started figuring out how we could fit them back together in a more sleek, aerodynamic structure; one built for speed and performance without sacrificing comfort and usability. One of the first things was ridding ourselves of the icons. This decreased the amount of data that had to be downloaded before a page was complete, plus with the decreased demand on the servers they could serve up the pages faster. The new design also allowed us to allocate space for a thumbnail of a title's poster or video box cover, and as we increase photographic content on our people end, we'll have space to thumbnail a headshot or promotional photo on the people pages. We began using the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) specification. Though the site is still usable by browsers that do not support CSS, the implementation of CSS has allowed us to tap into more advanced design elements and functions available in the 4.x versions or higher of Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer. We also subdivided the data a bit more and created data groups for our links to it. By giving separate pages to more types of data, this allowed us to have room for future expansion in regard to the film or person without any one page becoming too overwhelmingly large. By grouping the data categories in the left-hand column, we created a more logical structure, putting the most important information at the top. and making the types of data easier to find than in the iconic popcorn littered at the top of our old pages. We did have some bumps and stumbles. Some users considered our condensation of the data on the main details page too severe, thus we added an option into the registration preferences to allow you to choose whether the condensed details or full cast and crew are listed when you pull up a title's page. Also, a character set specification was not working well in all browsers and platforms, causing a very small percentage to pull up non-English characters when accessing our pages. We fixed that too. All in all, when users have had constructive commentary, we have listened, and when possible and reasonable, tried to make accomodations and/or improvements. Subtle changes are still going on both in the visible web interface and in the mechanics underneath. Though the design premiered in September, we continue to solicit and encourage feedback both through our survey and the direct e-mail address . ================================= IMDb AND THE AMAZON VIDEO STORE ================================= In mid-November, amidst much press hooplah, our corporate parent amazon.com began selling videotapes and DVD's online. Though amazon.com had previously sold a small number of video tapes through their existing bookstore catalog, the catalog expanded exponentially and the users of the IMDb have benefitted. The first and foremost benefit has been the integration of various elements of Amazon's video store content into the IMDb. This has greatly increased the number of video cover scans available to us, allowing us to include poster/box images with thousands of our titles. And when amazon.com licensed the Leonard Maltin Video Guide summaries, we gained access to that data as well, allowing us to supplement our data on thousands of titles with plot summaries and commentary from one of the USA's foremost experts on movies. Secondary, but of no less importance, we have been able to add notations to every page where a VHS or DVD copy of that title is available for sale. Some might consider this crassly commercial, but a question posed to us quite often has been "where can I find this on video?" Even before our relationship with Amazon, we had been experimenting with ways to direct our users to videos for sale online as a way of making our massive collection of information that more useful. With the integration between us and amazon.com, we are now able to offer sales links to a growing catalog of titles, over 60,000 at present time. All you have to do is look in the upper right-hand of any title page to see if the title is available on video or DVD. If it is, you're just a few clicks away from having it shipped right to your door at up to 30% off manufacturer's list price. And when you use these links, you're also supporting the IMDb, because the sale is registered as coming from us. The better our numbers are, the easier it is to show amazon.com what an important part of their business we are and get the support we need to continue to improve the site for our users. Despite the temptation to have a more in-your-face presentation in this regard, trying to push video sales, we felt this low-key approach to be in line with preserving the integrity of our site and keeping the feel consistent for our users who have been with us since long before we were acquired by amazon.com. We're happy to merely offer a conduit to amazon.com and let them handle the sales, while we continue to focus on offering you the best movie site on the web. ============================================ THE BEST AND WORST FILMS OF 1998 ============================================ The following text is taken from our weekly "Award Winners" page... http://us.imdb.com/awards Each Tuesday we present a new article about past, present, and/or future awards. The "Award Winners" page will also be the central location in coming weeks to find links to all our coverage of this year's Academy Awards. And each month in the newsletter, we'll be tracking the past month's releases and how they're faring with our registered users based on their votes. Remember, to vote on films, you must be a registered user. If you haven't yet registered, please take a moment to do so at... http://us.imdb.com/Register/ ======= Award Winners: February 2, 1999 Tis the season to give statues! Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. A-wards shows are coming at you! Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la... With the Golden Globes in the past and the Oscars in the future, the TV Guide awards this past week, various guilds (SAG, DGA, etc.) getting ready to have their own awards ceremonies, film critics associations from both big cities and backwater towns passing out their own awards, it's getting to the point where any film that has the slightest chance of getting an Oscar® is just going to have to throw it on top of the pile. Rather than contribute to the mass of doorstops and paperweights being handed out in bulk, we thought we'd go simpler and merely present a best and worst films of '98 list that REALLY matters to our users because its based on their votes. Following is the IMDb's Top 21 of 1998. To qualify for the list, the film had to be released in the U.S. during 1998 and receive at least 400 votes from registered users of the IMDb. Rank Title Rating Votes 1 Shakespeare in Love (1998) 9.0 1573 2 Life is Beautiful (1998) 8.9 1142 3 Saving Private Ryan (1998) 8.8 8234 4 American History X (1998) 8.7 422 Smoke Signals (1998) 8.7 424 6 Ever After (1998) 8.4 1243 Simple Plan, A (1998) 8.4 472 8 Bug's Life, A (1998) 8.2 1423 9 Truman Show, The (1998) 8.1 5979 10 Happiness (1998) 8.0 411 Mulan (1998) 8.0 1414 Pleasantville (1998) 8.0 1392 Zero Effect (1998) 8.0 662 14 Dangerous Beauty (1998) 7.9 422 Elizabeth (1998) 7.9 911 Pi (1998) 7.9 479 There's Something About Mary (1998) 7.9 4461 18 Big Lebowski, The (1998) 7.8 3202 Negotiator, The (1998) 7.8 1421 Out of Sight (1998) 7.8 1775 Parent Trap, The (1998) 7.8 406 And for those of you wondering what fared the worst. Following are the 11 films (because of a tie for number 10) with 100 or more votes from our registered users that got the lowest ratings of 1998. Rank Title Rating Votes 10 Godzilla (1998) 5.0 3949 Krippendorf's Tribe (1998) 5.0 134 9 I Still Know What You Did Last... (1998) 4.9 527 Jane Austen's Mafia (1998) ...aka Mafia! (USA: complete title) 4.9 278 7 Firestorm (1998) 4.8 171 6 Hush (1998) 4.6 233 5 Almost Heroes (1998) 4.2 109 4 Species II (1998) 4.1 447 3 Avengers, The (1998) 4.0 1575 2 Knock Off (1998) 3.7 209 And the #1 WORST film of 1998, according to IMDb users... 1 Jerry Springer - Ringmaster (1998) 3.4 115 ============================================ USERS FIND "COOL TODAY" VERY COOL ============================================ A new section that has been added to the IMDb with the redesign is the Cool Today section (). Available both at the site (by clicking the "Cool Today" button at the top of any page) and via e-mail subscription, this is one of our most popular new features, growing by thousands of daily readers every month. Cool Today offers a variety of information from around the database, specially chosen by our editorial staff each and every weekday. Besides the three "What's Cool" items from the home page, Cool Today also offers a daily movie quote, a "user question of the day" from our popular "Stump The Staff" column, a trivia question, and celebrity birthdays. The Cool Today page also serves as the portal to our other creative and fun content along the left-hand side. Besides the older "Daily Studio Briefing" and "Film Threat Weekly" columns, we also now offer a weekly editorial feature ("The Editor's Pulpit"), our daily Q&A where our in-house movie mavens and guest experts help users identify films and answer other film & TV questions ("Stump The Staff"), and our weekly "where are they now" feature ("Celebrity Lost & Found") with reports on whatever happened to favorite stars of the past, often offering photos from their heyday and the present. Over the next few months we plan to expand our creative offerings with more columns, games, and other fun features, and Cool Today will be the place to find links to them. TO SUBSCRIBE to the Cool Today mailing list, send a blank e-mail to... cool-subscribe@mlists.imdb.com ====================== NEW STAFF ====================== Since the last newsletter, we have made some additions to the IMDb staff and would like to take a moment to introduce them to you. In alphabetical order they are... GREG BULMASH: Resident Opinionated Bozo Greg Bulmash came on board with the new design as Senior Editor to take charge of developing in-house creative/editorial content and overseeing external content deals. Greg currently writes all the blurbs for the home page and Cool Today (except for the movie quote of the day), writes the "Editor's Pulpit" and "Celebrity Lost & Found" columns, edits "Stump The Staff," co- manages links to external sites for title pages, writes and/or edits content for our "Award Winners" page and this newsletter, manages the "Daily Studio Briefing" section, is developing new creative content sections, is the contact point for editorial inquiries, is redesigning some of our in-house ad banners, and will head up the upcoming Agency Outreach program. He can be reached at greg@imdb.com currently or in a few months at the old writers' home for terminal burnouts. JAKE DIAS: Server Jockey Jake Dias is our systems guru, overseeing the day-to-day management of the international network of servers that pump out our tens of millions of page views every month. Besides this overwhelming task that has him jumping every time a server burps, Jake also finds time to manage the Genre section and links to external sites for filmography pages. DUNCAN SMITH: New Meat Duncan is the latest technically-minded movie buff to come on board. As we're easing him into his job in the first few weeks, we haven't piled the duties on him quite as much as our other staffers. Duncan's primary responsibilities will be in information management, helping to track, validate, and process the ever-increasing mass of info we integrate into the database every week. =================================== IMDb DVD SECTION =================================== At Christmas this year, the media were describing the DVD player as the "adult furby." With player prices as low as $299, they were flying off store shelves at a faster pace than just about all the analysts had predicted. In fact, when our Senior Editor, Greg Bulmash, finally broke down and decided to buy a player of his own just before Christmas, he had to visit three stores before he found the player he wanted (a common model) in stock. Our more gadget-minded staffers, though, have been DVD-capable for much longer. Our Managing Director, Col Needham, for example, got a Panasonic hand-held player and during some extensive travelling in November was able to avoid the indignity of watching poorly projected in-flight movies, instead enjoying his choice of films on his personal player. He claimed at one point: "I should have become an authorized Panasonic dealer before I left. I got asked so many questions by other passengers I probably could have sold ten units on each flight." With the assistance of amazon.com, our staff of videophiles have gotten their hands on a huge mass of discs and have been indexing them in our DVD section (). As of last count, we'd cataloged information on nearly 1500 Region 1 (North America) encoded discs, with a grand total of over 2050 discs. Our staff has also been hard at work on the DVD section interface (see URL above), allowing you to browse through the available titles based on any number of criteria, from the available subtitle languages and the type of packaging, to stuff like aspect ratio and distributor. Most of the entries list the running time, various audio formats (from plain stereo to flavors of surround), supplemental features (like trailers, production notes, etc.), and though you can get reviews of the movies from our links to newsgroup and external reviews, our staff of videophiles are hard at work, creating our own internal reviews of the DVD's. If there's one thing we've learned, not all DVD's are created equal and our staff are slowly, but surely, adding commentary on the picture and sound quality of the film-to-DVD tranfers. As well as being available en masse from the DVD browser section, details on the individual titles are also linked from the title pages under "DVD details" in the "Other Info" section. ================================ ANNOUNCE MAIL HIGHLIGHTS ================================ by Col Needham Here are a few highlights from Col Needham's weekly announcement mailings since the last newsletter... TV GUEST APPEARANCE UPDATE The TV guest appearance pages have been reformatted to be both easier to read and faster to download. The guests are now grouped by episode number and combined under a single title. For an example please see: http://us.imdb.com/Guests?%22Fawlty+Towers%22+(1975) NEW ALTERNATE TITLES SERVER We've launched a new service for international users to allow access to many of the international alternative (AKA) titles in the database on a single server, located at: http://akas.imdb.com/ This server contains alternate titles in 16 languages with the most popular being: Italian (18942), German (13497), Spanish (8756), and Finnish (4612). The alternative titles are listed in the search results, on the title details pages such as: http://akas.imdb.com/Tsearch?lethal+weapon You may also search using them in any of the title search areas. At this stage coverage has a long way to go in many countries/languages. If you would like to help with alternative titles from your country, please see: http://akas.imdb.com/Guides/aka-titles TITLE SEARCH We've made a number of changes to the title search feature. To help people find titles more easily we now list matches in the most popular 1,000 titles in a separate area at the top of the results in a section labelled 'Most popular searches'. The title search is accessible via the search form at the top of the left hand column on each IMDb page and also at: http://us.imdb.com/title-search A search for the word 'Babe' will now highlight the original talking animal movie and its recently released sequel ahead of the other 70+ titles containing the word. A search for 'Enemy' will surface 'Enemy of the State' at the top of the list, allowing you to quickly find popular titles with a shorter search. In addition, all the results are broken out into separate lists for movies, TV-movies, made for video, TV-series and video games. Again this will enable you to more easily locate the title you are seeking. In cases where there are more than 400 matches we now provide a link at the bottom of the results to view the next 400 (and so on). For example, try a title search for the word 'Blue'. NEW FILMOGRAPHY SECTIONS Ever since the miscellaneous crew filmography section was added to the IMDb in 1994, we've been able to cover all professions in the database. A credit could either be placed in one of the specific sections (actors, actresses, directors, writers, composers, cinematographers, editors, costume designers, production designers and producers) or in the catch-all miscellaneous section. Our intention was always to spin off new specific filmography sections once credits for a particular profession or department reached critical mass. We've finally been able to do a first round of splits! New specific filmography sections are available for: Casting Directors Art Directors Set Decorators Make-Up Department Production Managers Assistant Directors Sound Department Special Effects Stunt Crew Further lists will be spun off from the remaining miscellaneous crew section over time. For a good example of the new sections in action, see the full credits for 'L.A. Confidential' at: http://us.imdb.com/Credits?L.A.+Confidential+(1997) We're still busy moving some of the credits to the new sections and updating the guides so it will be a while before things settle down. More details on the new sections will be included in the next newsletter. ================================ IMDb IN THE NEWS ================================ by Jon Reeves notable mentions: Credits of various New Line DVDs (Dark City, Lost in Space). Minneapolis Star Tribune (15 July, 11 October) Daily Telegraph (23 July, 28 May) Newsday (15 June, 22 May, 13 December) SoftBase, 30 May (reprint of Database article from 1996). Bob Deitel, Gannett News Service (30 September). The Washington Times (15 September). Entertainment Weekly (10 July, 19 June) U-Wire (11 September, 10 November). Los Angeles Times (2 July, 13 August, 31 December ) Wisconsin State Journal (25 June). The Boston Globe (November). PC Computing (November). Yahoo! Internet Life (January). Cinema (Germany), December Telegraph (Nashua NH). La Repubblica (Italy). Internet .net Magazine (Italy) (November). Parade (January) CNN Entertainment Today (18 November) KABC News (31 December) Internet Tonight (Ziff-Davis Television - October 13) news.com (12 January) Business Week (28 September) awards: http://www.webtrips.com WebTrips Rockin' Site of the Week. http://www.povmag.com/ P.O.V. 100 (#52). http://www.gii.com/ GII award semi-finalist. http://www.coolsiteoftheday.com/csoty/98movie.html Nominated for Cool Site of the Year. http://www.manitoulin-link.com/gazette M@Gazette Recommended site. ================================ DATABASE STATISTICS ================================ by Jon Reeves This is a regular section giving information about the current size and growth of the IMDb. We receive between 50,000 and 75,000 additions every week (to all lists, not just those in the totals below) from thousands of users all over the world. Number of filmography entries: 2,669,191 Number of people covered: 669,678 Number of movies covered: 172,770 Size of the database (Mb): 267 Not-so-recent milestones (some are far surpassed now): - 1,500 DVDs - 1,500 awards - 2,500 special effect company entries - 2,500 posters - 2,500 titles with trivia entries - 5,000 movies with complete crew information - 10,000 plot outlines - 15,000 rec.arts.movies.reviews - 25,000 movies with complete cast information - 25,000 stunt people - 50,000 distributor entries - 75,000 release date entries - 75,000 alternate titles - 75,000 title-related URLs - 125,000 technical database entries - 150,000 director entries - 150,000 writer entries - 150,000 country entries - 150,000 movie links - 175,000 primary titles - 250,000 genre entries - 500,000 miscellaneous filmography entries - 2,500,000 filmography entries As explained in the "Announce Mail Highlights," nine new lists were split out of the miscellaneous filmography list, so it actually has much less than 500,000 entries now. ================= ABOUT THE IMDb ================= The Internet Movie Database is an international operation whose goal is providing useful and up-to-date movie information *freely* available on-line, across as many systems and platforms as possible. It currently covers over 180,000 movies with over 2,500,000 filmography entries and is expanding continuously. The database includes filmographies for actors, directors, writers, composers, cinematographers, editors, production designers, costume designers, producers, casting directors, art directors, set decorators, make-up artists, production managers, assistant directors, sound people, special effects people, stunt people, and a miscellaneous catch all section; plot summaries; character names; movie ratings; year of release; running times; movie trivia; quotes; goofs; soundtracks; personal trivia; alternative names; certificates; color information; country of production; genres; production companies; distributors; sound mix; reference literature; filming locations; sequel/remake information; release dates; advertising tag lines; detailed technical data; alternative versions; laserdisc availability; language information; business data; companies participating; and award information. The database aims to capture any and all information associated with movies from across the world, starting with the earliest cinema, going through to the very latest releases and even movies still in production. Many thousands of movies are covered completely from the major actors to the minor bit players and crew members. All the information comes from the users of the database so please continue to support it and help it to grow. The database is updated weekly and is available over the world wide web, an E-mail interface or for local installation on UNIX, Amiga, MS-DOS, and Windows 95/NT machines. Academy Awards and Oscar are registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. UNIX and X Window System are registered trademarks of The Open Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.