And it’s all thanks, in part, to naked women.
Prior to Wikipedia, back in 1996, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales started Bomis Inc., a search portal perhaps best known for its network of softcore pornography and highly trafficked “Bomis Babes” blog.
According to Wales’ own biography on Wikipedia, Bomis donated more than $100,000 dollars in seed money to launch Wikipedia and continued supporting the company into 2002, shelling out an estimated half-million dollars into the site’s growth.
Until recently, Bomis was still listed as the official registrant of the Wikipedia domain, though Wales has said he no longer contributes to the company, focusing entirely on his “wiki projects.”
Wales disputes the porn connection, however, arguing in his Wiki bio that the images in the Bomis network were racy at best.
“If R-rated movies are soft porn, it was porn. In other words, no, it was not,” reads the bio.
Wales has repeatedly denied claims that Bomis is still affiliated with Wikipedia, but still lists the company prominently throughout his biography, disputing recent claims by the mainstream press that he’s tried to hide the company’s origins.
“When [I] was CEO, Bomis donated more than $100,000, primarily through salaries and by providing free Internet access and bandwidth, into Wikipedia,” reads the bio.
Earlier this year, Wales was appointed a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. He continues to travel the world touting his many “wikis,” including the collaborative dictionary, “Wiktionary,” open-content textbook site “Wikibooks,” quote-reference site “Wikiquote,” source portal “Wikisource,” species directory “Wikispecies” and the news site “Wikinews,” among others.
World Technology Network recently named Jimmy Wales as one of the most innovative individuals in science and technology.