Tag: IMDb

IMDb : The new design

IMDb is widely known for two things: the overwhelming size of its movie database, and the fact that it never changes the way it looks.

Well, guess what, IMDb update its look and feel, and it’s not a minor change. It’s fast, it’s functional, and it no longer looks like it was built 20 years ago.

The funny thing is that while I was looking for a blog post announcing the changes, I came across this one from 2009. I haven’t realized that it was from 2009 until I saw the screenshots.

Some time ago the incredible happened: our beloved movie database site IMDb finally realized that it was not 1996 anymore and dared to hire some designers in order to – you won’t believe it – change the design of the page! When I visited the site the other day, I couldn’t believe my eyes

And just so that we keep the history, here are a couple of screenshots of how it used to look:

  • IMDB: 2007
    IMDB: 2007
  • IMDB: 2009
    IMDB: 2009

Great job IMDb! Even if it’ll take all of us a bit to get used to the new design. At least we know it’ll last another decade.

Real-time face detection and emotion/gender classification


I came across this interesting Python tool that helps with real-time face detection and emotion and gender classification.  Here is a more complete brief description from the project page:

Real-time face detection and emotion/gender classification using fer2013/IMDB datasets with a keras CNN model and openCV.

  • IMDB gender classification test accuracy: 96%.
  • fer2013 emotion classification test accuracy: 66%.




Happy birthday, IMDb!


imdb

According to Wikipedia, Internet Movie Database, or IMDb, as we know it, has turned 25 years old (launched on October 17, 1990).  What an achievement!  There aren’t that many websites around that are that old and still that useful.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish a very Happy Birthday to everyone who was involved with the site during all this years.  Thank you!

I hope one day we’ll overcome all those copyright restrictions and it’ll be possible to watch movies and TV series directly on the site, much like the trailers are now.




IMDb 500 error page


I’ve been using IMDb for years now, and I don’t remember the site ever being down, broken or inaccessible. Today, however, for the first time ever I’ve seen IMDb’s 500 error page.  Here is how it looks:

imdb 500 error

The front page still works – probably available from cache or something – but any movie page that I am trying to access throws the error 500, which is an internal server issue.  Hopefully, it’ll be fixed soon.




What is an IMDb Check In?


Today I noticed something that I don’t remember seeing before – IMDb movie pages now have a “Check In” button.  When clicked, a tiny form for comment is coming up, which also features some sort of sharing to Facebook.  The functionality is marked as beta, so I’m not sure who else can see it, how well it works, and what are the purposes of it at all.  Here are two screenshots – one of the button itself and another of the form which pops up when the button is clicked.

Do any of you guys see these?  Any idea what’s that and what is it for?  Have you seen any IMDb announcements about the feature or any blog posts in relation to this?