原文
BRISTOL, England--The closest that Col Needham gets to corporate life is the Dilbert calendar in his neat office--a converted bedroom in a quaint house in the ancient village of Stoke Gifford, a suburb of Bristol, the harbor city that is 90 minutes west of London by train.

As the founder and managing director of the Internet Movie Database, Needham might just be the archetype of the telecommuting Web-head. The site he founded and runs ranks as the 10th-most-popular entertainment spot online, according to ComScore Media Metrix. It had 18.6 million unique visitors in April, a 67 percent surge from a year earlier.

In Stoke Gifford, Needham works solo--without even an assistant--but is in constant contact by instant message with other employees scattered across the globe and at the Seattle headquarters of Amazon.com, which acquired the business eight years ago. "Everybody assumes that we have a massive office complex on Wilshire Boulevard," Needham said with a grin. "I always say, 'We're headquartered on the Internet.' "

Needham, a boyish, closely shorn 39-year-old walked to the kitchen, put on the kettle and made tea. Part of what makes him a curiosity--beyond his enviable work setup--is that Internet Movie Database, or Imdb for short, has become a classic example of a hobby that turns out to be a powerful media asset. For years, it has quietly gone about its business almost entirely separately from its parent, and only subtly does it encourage users to go to the Amazon site to buy videos.

"We didn't sit down and think, 'What's the best way to make money on the Internet?' " Needham said. "This is very much a labor of love. When we started the company, there was no commercial use of the Internet."

Even so, Imdb's convergence moment may soon be at hand, say studio executives who have worked with Amazon on developing a download service that could let people burn DVDs on their desktops. Though Amazon and Needham decline to talk about plans, Imdb could play a more prominent role in the retailer's media strategy. Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Brothers are all involved in the project, executives close to the project have said.

Several weeks ago, one media executive who had been briefed on Amazon's strategy but did not want to be identified because it was still being formulated, pointed out one aspect of Imdb's popularity: if you use search engines to look for the title of virtually any past movie or television show, or the names of celebrities from those realms, Imdb often comes up as the first result.

In the retail business, that is the equivalent of excellent shelf frontage, or, in television, of having a single-digit channel number rather than being relegated to Channel 284 on the cable lineup.