Global InformationBomis information
 | |
 Bomis founders in 2006 Tim Shell, Jimmy Wales, and Michael E. Davis | |
| Type of business | Private company |
|---|---|
Type of site |
|
| Available in | English |
| Founded | 1996 |
| Dissolved | 2007[1] |
| Headquarters | St. Petersburg, Florida , United States |
| Founder(s) |
|
| CEO | Tim Shell[2][3] |
| Industry | Dot-com |
| Products |
|
| Employees | 10 |
| Subsidiaries |
|
| URL | bomis.com, archived at the Internet Archive |
| Advertising | Yes |
| Registration | No |
| Launched | 1996 |
Bomis (/ˈbɒmɪs/, from Bitter Old Men in Suits;[14] rhyming with "promise"),[15] was a dot-com company best known for supporting the creations of free-content online-encyclopedia projects Nupedia and Wikipedia.[9] It was co-founded in 1996 by Jimmy Wales, Tim Shell, and Michael Davis.[16][17][18] By 2007, the company was inactive, with its Wikipedia-related resources transferred to the Wikimedia Foundation.[1][19]
The company initially tried a number of ideas for content, including being a directory of information about Chicago.[20] The site subsequently focused on content geared to a male audience, including information on sporting activities, automobiles, and women.[21][22][23] Bomis became successful after focusing on pornography.[24] "Bomis Babes" was devoted to erotic images;[6] the "Bomis Babe Report" featured adult pictures.[8][13] Bomis Premium, available for an additional fee, provided explicit material.[5][24][25] "The Babe Engine" helped users find erotic content through a web search engine.[4][9][26] The advertising director for Bomis noted that 99 percent of queries on the site were for nude women.[27]
Bomis created Nupedia as a free online encyclopedia (with content submitted by experts) but it had a tedious, slow review process.[28][29] Wikipedia was initially launched by Bomis to provide content for Nupedia,[12][30][31] and was a for-profit venture (a Bomis subsidiary) through the end of 2002.[32] As the costs of Wikipedia rose with its popularity, Bomis' revenues declined; these losses were compounded by the dot-com crash.[33] Since Wikipedia was a drain on Bomis' resources, Wales and philosophy graduate student Larry Sanger decided to fund the project as a nonprofit.[33] Sanger was laid off from Bomis in 2002.[34] Nupedia content was merged into Wikipedia,[35] and it ceased in 2003.[11]
The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation began in 2003 with a board of trustees composed of Bomis' three founders (Wales, Davis, and Shell)[18] and was first headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida,[19] Bomis' location.[36] Wales used about US$100,000 of revenue from Bomis to fund Wikipedia before the decision to shift the encyclopedia to non-profit status.[37] Wales stepped down from his role as CEO of Bomis in 2004.[38] Shell was CEO of the company in 2005, while on the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees.[2] Wales edited Wikipedia in 2005 to remove the characterizations of Bomis as providing softcore pornography,[30][39] which attracted media attention;[25][40][41] Wales expressed regret for his actions.[30][39] The Atlantic gave Bomis the nickname "Playboy of the Internet",[42] and the term caught on in other media outlets.[33][43][44] Scholars have described Bomis as a provider of softcore pornography.[31][45]
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