IMDb announces 40m app downloads, as it introduces check-ins and new discovery features
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) feels like it has been around since the dawn of the Web. And you may be surprised to learn that it has in fact been around since the advent of the modern Internet era …
Context & Ripple Effects
IMDb's announcement lands mid-way through the app-economy land grab charted by GigaOM's forecast of 44 billion mobile app downloads by 2016, when install milestones had become the standard public scoreboard for consumer apps. Two months earlier, video app Viddy was touting 26 million users and over 500K registrations a day — the same genre of number, from a mobile-native rival.
The notable wrinkle here is that IMDb is a pre-mobile web institution announcing its first big mobile figure, and pairing it with check-ins rather than resting on the download count. The pickup across VentureBeat, CNET, Digital Trends, SlashGear, WebProNews, 9to5Google and 9to5Mac suggests the milestone-plus-features formula still travels well with tech press in 2012.
First-order effects
- IMDb's 40 million installed base becomes the distribution channel for its new check-in and discovery features, which need scale on day one to produce meaningful activity data.
- The check-in mechanic shifts IMDb's product goal from one-off lookups toward repeated, logged engagement — the metric mobile-native peers like Viddy publicly compete on.
Second-order effects
- Download counts are a weak proxy for active use, so rivals and press will now judge IMDb on whether check-ins convert installs into habitual users — the same scrutiny applied to Viddy's daily registration numbers.
- Discovery features built on check-in data put IMDb's apps closer to being a recommendation surface for what to watch, adjacent to the streaming and ticketing services that currently own that moment.
Third-order effects
- If legacy reference brands keep following this path, the pattern points toward static databases repositioning as engagement platforms, with milestone announcements — echoing Digg's 2007 one-million-users post — serving as the recurring press ritual of the app economy.
The trend: Legacy web brands are converting large installed mobile bases into engagement-driven platforms, as download milestones give way to activity metrics as the industry's measure of success.