Bomis, Inc. (, from Bitter Old Men in Suits; rhyming with "promise") was an American dot-com company best known for supporting the creations of free-content online-encyclopedia projects Nupedia and Wikipedia. It was co-founded in 1996 by Jimmy Wales, Tim Shell, and Michael Davis. By 2007, the company was inactive, with its Wikipedia-related resources transferred to the Wikimedia Foundation.
The company initially tried a number of ideas for content, including being a directory of information about Chicago. The site subsequently focused on content geared to a male audience, including information on sporting activities, automobiles, and women. Bomis became successful after focusing on pornography. "Bomis Babes" was devoted to erotic images; the "Bomis Babe Report" featured adult pictures. Bomis Premium, available for an additional fee, provided explicit material. "The Babe Engine" helped users find erotic content through a web search engine. The advertising director for Bomis noted that 99 percent of queries on the site were for nude women.
Bomis created Nupedia as a free online encyclopedia (with content submitted by experts) but it had a tedious, slow review process. Wikipedia was initially launched by Bomis to provide content for Nupedia, and was a for-profit venture (a Bomis subsidiary) through the end of 2002. As the costs of Wikipedia rose with its popularity, Bomis' revenues declined; these losses were compounded by the dot-com crash. Since Wikipedia was a drain on Bomis' resources, Wales and philosophy graduate student Larry Sanger decided to fund the project as a nonprofit. Sanger was laid off from Bomis in 2002. Nupedia content was merged into Wikipedia, and it ceased in 2003.
The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation began in 2003 with a board of trustees composed of Bomis' three founders (Wales, Davis, and Shell) and was first headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida, Bomis' location. Wales used about US$100,000 of revenue from Bomis to fund Wikipedia before the decision to shift the encyclopedia to non-profit status. Wales stepped down from his role as CEO of Bomis in 2004. Shell was CEO of the company in 2005, while on the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees. Wales edited Wikipedia in 2005 to remove the characterizations of Bomis as providing softcore pornography, which attracted media attention; Wales expressed regret for his actions. The Atlantic gave Bomis the nickname "Playboy of the Internet", and the term caught on in other media outlets. Scholars have described Bomis as a provider of softcore pornography.
History
Background Jimmy Wales left a study track at Indiana University as a PhD candidate to work in finance before completing his doctoral dissertation.Edemariam 2011, p. 27Long 2012, p. 5 In 1994 Wales was hired by Michael Davis, CEO of finance company Chicago Options Associates, as a traderChozick 2013, p. MM28 focusing on futures contracts and options. Wales was adept at determining future movements of foreign currencies and interest rates; he was successful in Chicago, became independently wealthy, and was director of research at Chicago Options Associates from 1994 to 2000.Doran 2006, p. 49McNichol 2007PC Quest 2012 He became acquainted with Tim Shell from email lists discussing philosophy.Craig 2013, p. 84
Wales wanted to participate in the online-based entrepreneurial ventures which were increasingly popular and successful during the mid-1990s. His experience (from gaming in his youth) impressed on him the importance of networking. Wales was interested in computer science, experimenting with source code on the Internet and improving his skill at computer programming. In his spare time after work at Chicago Options Associates, Wales constructed his own web browser. While at the firm, he noted the successful 1995 initial public offering of Netscape Communications.
Foundation
Wales co-founded Bomis in 1996, with business associates Tim Shell,Zittrain 2008, p. 133Meyer 2012 and his then-manager Michael Davis,Seybold 2006, p. 250DiBona 2005 as a for-profit corporation with joint ownership.Lee 2013, p 91The Hamilton Spectator 2008, p. A14 Wales was its chief manager.Friedman 2007, p. 121 In 1998 he moved from Chicago to San Diego to work for Bomis,Mangu-Ward 2007Pink 2005 and then to St. Petersburg, Florida (where the company subsequently relocated).Mehegan 2006
The staff at Bomis was originally about five employees. Its 2000 staff included programmer Toan Vo, Andrew McCague and system administrator Jason Richey; Wales employed his high-school friend and best man in his second wedding, Terry Foote, as advertising director.The Economist 2008 In June 2000, Bomis was one of five network partners of Ask Jeeves.Du Bois 2000, p. 33 The majority of the revenue that came in to Bomis was generated through advertising. The most successful time for Bomis was during its venture as a member of the NBC web portal NBCi; this collapsed at the end of the dot-com bubble.
Although Bomis is not an acronym, the name stemmed from "Bitter Old Men in Suits"Isaacson 2014, The Daily Beast (as Wales and Shell called themselves in Chicago). The site began as a web portal, trying a number of ideas (including serving as an access point for information about Chicago). It later focused on male-oriented content, including information on sporting activities, automobiles, and women.The Globe and Mail 2012, pp. 89–91Weinberger 2008, p. 138Shirky 2009
Hosted content
Working from the Open Directory Project,Gillmor 1999 Bomis created and maintained hundreds of webrings on topics related to lad culture. In 1999 the company introduced the Bomis Browser, which helped users block online pop-up ads.Wright 1999 Its webring on Star Wars was considered a useful resource for information on Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999).Soriano 1999, p. 2E Additional webrings included sections helping users find information on the 1942 film Casablanca,Merlock 2000, p. 33 Hunter S. Thompson,Chester R (July 23, 1998), p. 25 Farrah Fawcett,Ward 2000, p. 8 Geri Halliwell of the Spice Girls,LaPointe 1998, p. F10 and the 1998 film Snake Eyes.Chester R (October 1, 1998), p. 21 "Bomis: The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Ring", devoted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, organized over 50 sites related to the program.QNP 1998, p. 17 Sheila Jeffreys noted in her Beauty and Misogyny that in 2004 Bomis maintained "The Lipstick Fetish Ring", which helped users with a particular attraction to women in makeup.Jeffreys 2005, pp. 60, 181
Bomis became successful after it focused on X-rated and erotic media.Kuchinskas 2009Szpilma 2014 Advertising generated revenue which enabled the company to fund other websites,Stöcker 2010Bhaskar 2013, pp. 158–159 and the site published suggestive pictures of professional models.Spirrison 2006, p. 62 In addition to Bomis the company maintained nekkid.com and nekkid.info, which featured pictures of nude women.Nekkid.info 2002 About ten percent of Bomis' revenue was derived from pornographic films and blogs.Business Insider 2013Schiff 2006
The website included a segment devoted to erotic images, "Bomis Babes",Hansen 2005Miller 2007, p. 17 and a feature enabled users to submit recommended links to other sites appealing to a male audience. Peer-to-peer services provided by the site helped users find other websites about female celebrities, including Anna Kournikova and Pamela Anderson. In the Bomis Babes section was the Bomis Babe Report, begun in 2000, with pictures of porn starsRosenzweig 2013Rosenzweig 2006Hutcheon 2007 in a blog format. The Bomis Babe Report produced original erotic material, including reports on pornographic film actors and celebrities who had posed nude. It was referred to as The Babe Report for short.Elliott 2007, p. 22
Wales referred to the site's softcore pornography as "glamour photography",Howe 2008, pp. 58–60Beveridge 2007, p. 68 and Bomis became familiar to Internet users for its erotic images.Semuels 2008, p. E4Bergstein (March 26, 2007)Kopytoff 2007, p. C1 During this period Wales was photographed steering a yacht with a peaked cap, posing as a sea captain with a female professional model on either side of him. In the photograph, the women were wearing panties and T-shirts advertising Bomis.Forman 2010
A subscription section, Bomis Premium, provided access to adult content and erotic material;Blakely 2005 A three-day trial was US$2.95.Schilling 2012 While Bomis Babes provided nude images of females to subscribers, Bomis Premium featured lesbian sexual practices and female anatomy. Bomis created the Babe Engine, which helped users find erotic material online through a web search engine.Henderson 2008, p. 500 According to Bomis advertising director Terry Foote, 99 percent of searches on the site related to nude women.
Nupedia and Wikipedia
Bomis is best known for supporting the creation of free-content online-encyclopedia projects Nupedia and Wikipedia. Tim Shell and Michael Davis continued their partnership with Wales during the 2000 Nupedia venture. Larry Sanger met Jimmy Wales through an e-mail communication group about philosophy and objectivism, and joined Bomis in May, 1999. Sanger was a graduate student working towards a PhD degree in philosophy, with research focused on epistemology;Anderson 2012, pp. 136–138Lievrouw 2011, pp. 202–205 he received his degree from Ohio State University,Moody 2006, p. 5 moving to San Diego to help Bomis with its encyclopedia venture.Reagle 2010 At the time Sanger joined Bomis, the company had a total workforce of two employees with help from programmers.
Sanger and Wales began Nupedia with resources from Bomis; at the beginning of 2000, the company agreed to provide early financing for Nupedia from its profits.Lessig 2009, pp. 156–157 Nupedia went live in March, when Wales was CEO of Bomis;Myers 2006, p. 163 Sanger was Nupedia's editor-in-chief.Seitz 2011, p. A3Gobillot 2011, pp. 84–86 Nupedia's reading comprehension was intended for high-school graduates, and Bomis set its goal: "To set a new standard for breadth, depth, timeliness and lack of bias, and in the fullness of time to become the most comprehensive encyclopedia in the history of humankind."Frauenfelder 2000, p. 110Rollins 2000, p. 1786
Although Bomis began a search for experts to vet Nupedia articles, this proved tedious. In August 2000 Nupedia had more than 60 academics contributing to the peer-review process on the site, most with doctorates in philosophy or medicine.School Library Journal 2000, p. S6 Scholars wishing to contribute to Nupedia were required to submit their credentials via fax for verification. At that time, Bomis was attempting to obtain advertising revenue for Nupedia and the company was optimistic that it could fund the project with ad space on Nupedia.com.
Wikipedia began as a feature of Nupedia.com on January 15, 2001,Curley 2012, pp. 35–38 later known as Wikipedia Day.Chozick 2013, p. 9 Someone working from the office.bomis.com server created the first edit to the website,Starling rclog the creation of HomePage with the text "This is the new WikiPedia!" It was originally intended only to generate draft articles for Nupedia, with finished articles moved to the latter. Wikipedia became a separate site days after the Nupedia advisory board opposed combining the two. In September 2001, Wales was simultaneously CEO of Bomis and co-founder of Wikipedia;Meyers 2001, p. D2 Sanger was chief organizer of Wikipedia and editor-in-chief of Nupedia.Richardson 2004, p. 339