[OnlyMortal]

IMDB originated in Bristol in the UK. It was, so I’m told, started by an ex-HP staffer from the HP site in Bristol, UK and originally written in Perl.

Unfortunately, it was absorbed into Amazon.

Source: ex-HP staffer in Bristol.

[cobbaut]

IMDB originated on usenet. Someone mentioned a hot actress, another person made a top three of actresses... a bit later is was a top 100, and that is how IMDB started. Source: my memory :)