Bomis facts for kids
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Bomis founders in 2006
Tim Shell, Jimmy Wales, and Michael E. Davis |
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| Type of business | Private company |
|---|---|
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Type of site
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Internet portal Advertising space |
| Available in | English |
| Founded | 1996 |
| Dissolved | 2007 |
| Headquarters |
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United States
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| Founder(s) | Jimmy Wales Tim Shell Michael Davis |
| CEO | Tim Shell |
| Industry | Dot-com |
| Products | Bomis Premium Bomis Babes Bomis Babe Report The Babe Engine Bomis Browser |
| Employees | 10 |
| Subsidiaries | Nupedia (2000–2003) Wikipedia (2001–2003) |
| Website | bomis.com, archived at the Internet Archive |
| Advertising | Yes |
| Registration | No |
| Launched | 1996 |
Bomis was an Internet company that started in 1996. It was created by Jimmy Wales. Bomis is most famous for helping to start two online encyclopedia projects: Nupedia and Wikipedia. These projects aimed to share knowledge for free.
Contents
History
How Bomis Started
Jimmy Wales was studying at Indiana University. He decided to leave his studies to work in finance. In 1994, he was hired by Michael Davis, who was the CEO of a finance company. Jimmy Wales became a successful trader. He was good at predicting how money markets would move.
While working in finance, Jimmy Wales became quite wealthy. He was also interested in the internet. He wanted to create his own online businesses. He learned a lot about computer science and computer programming. He even built his own web browser in his free time.
Founding Bomis
In 1996, Jimmy Wales co-founded Bomis. He started it with his business partners, Tim Shell and Michael Davis. Bomis was a company that aimed to make a profit. Jimmy Wales was its main manager. He later moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, where the company was located.
Bomis started with about five employees. By 2000, it had grown a bit. The company made most of its money from advertisements. Bomis was very successful for a while, especially when it was part of the NBC web portal. However, this success ended when the "dot-com bubble" burst.
The name "Bomis" is not an acronym. It came from a joke where Wales and Shell called themselves "Bitter Old Men in Suits." The website began as a general web portal. It tried different ideas, like sharing information about Chicago. Later, it focused on content for men, such as sports and cars.
Nupedia and Wikipedia Projects
Bomis created Nupedia as a free online encyclopedia. Experts wrote the articles for Nupedia. However, the process to review and approve articles was very slow.
Wikipedia was first launched by Bomis to help create content for Nupedia. Wikipedia was also a for-profit business owned by Bomis until the end of 2002. As Wikipedia became more popular, its costs grew. At the same time, Bomis's income went down because of the dot-com crash.
Because Wikipedia was costing Bomis a lot of money, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger decided to make it a nonprofit project. Larry Sanger was laid off from Bomis in 2002. The content from Nupedia was later added to Wikipedia, and Nupedia stopped running in 2003.
In 2003, the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation was started. This foundation now runs Wikipedia. The three founders of Bomis—Jimmy Wales, Michael Davis, and Tim Shell—were on its first board. The Wikimedia Foundation was first located in St. Petersburg, Florida, just like Bomis.
By 2005, Tim Shell was the CEO of Bomis. He was also on the board that oversaw Wikipedia. In 2006, he became the vice-president of the Wikimedia Foundation. Michael Davis, another Bomis co-founder, became the treasurer of the Wikimedia Foundation that year. In 2007, Jimmy Wales said that Bomis was "pretty much dead," even though he still owned part of it.
Images for kids
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Tim Shell
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Michael Davis
See also
In Spanish: Bomis para niños
