Short answers, pulled from the story.
Senh Duong founded Rotten Tomatoes as a spare-time coding project in 1998, and the website went live on the 12th of August 1998. Duong created the site to collect reviews of Jackie Chan's Hong Kong action movies following the release of Rush Hour in August 1998.
Rotten Tomatoes was acquired by IGN Entertainment in June 2004 and later sold to Flixster in January 2010 before Warner Bros. acquired it in 2011. Comcast's Fandango Media purchased the site and Flixster in February 2016, and the company moved to Beverly Hills, California by December 2016.
The Tomatometer calculates the percentage of positive reviews from certified critics, with a film considered fresh if 60% or more of the reviews are positive. A Certified Fresh seal requires a score of 75% or better with at least 80 reviews including 5 Top Critics, or 40 reviews for limited releases.
The Golden Tomato Awards honor the best-reviewed films of the year without an actual awards event, with nominees and winners announced on the website. Films must have 40 or more rated reviews for domestic categories, and limited releases are defined as opening in 599 or fewer theaters.
Major Hollywood studios view Rotten Tomatoes as a potential threat to their marketing strategies and have attempted to manipulate the system by embargoing or cancelling early critic screenings. Academic researchers have not found evidence that Rotten Tomatoes ratings directly affect box office performance, but scores are now brought up in pitch meetings to affect hiring decisions.