Bomis is an Internet company founded in 1996. Its primary business is the sale of advertising on the Bomis.com search portal. It also sells erotic images over the Internet.
Bomis started Nupedia and hired Larry Sanger who, while working on Nupedia, had the idea for Wikipedia. Bomis provides the webspace and bandwidth for these projects. Bomis also owned some key items related to the project that were not open source or open content (such as the ___domain name). However, these were moved to the ownership of the Wikimedia Foundation, officially announced on June 20, 2003 (See: Wikimedia Foundation's By-laws (PDF file)).
Bomis has never had venture capital.
Employees
Jimbo Wales is the majority owner of Bomis. Tim Shell is his partner, and they have another partner who is (merely) an investor, not an active participant in the company.
Former employee Larry Sanger worked solely on Nupedia and Wikipedia.
External links and references
- Official Bomis website
- The Bomis Babe Report (explicit content)
- Bomis Premium Website (explicit content; subscription-based site)
- List of Bomis slogans
- Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia-L about Bomis