Chapter 2
Jimmy set up Bomis in November 1996. Tim Shell, a gifted computer scientist and fellow member of the ‘Objectivism’ mailing list was staying in Chicago and trying to break into the dotcom business, which was just beginning to take off. They started the Bomis web site, for ‘Bitter Old Men in Suits’, as an ‘online marketing venture’ developing ‘new and innovative ways to sell products over the Internet’.
Jimbo foresees the internet as central to technological development in the forthcoming century (“I’m the new economy -- I’m the internet”).With the savings from his work as a futures arbitrageur, he sets up a small internet company: ‘Bitter Old Men in Suits’ or Bomis. Bomis is a ‘web ring’, a sort of telephone directory for the web which will soon be made obsolete by the new search engine Google.
The only business model that works is softcore pornography. Bomis starts with a regular “Bomis Report”, with Baywatch Babes Ring rankings. Pamela Anderson is first with 10,429 visits on January 23 1998, Donna D’Errico some way behind with a mere 3,546 visits. Later, the site features links to hardcore pornography (‘Cum guzzling sluts with their mouths full’).
Bomis becomes successful enough to support Jimbo's idea for an online reference work that will attract legitimate forms of advertising. In 1998 he moves from the cold of Chicago to set up shop in San Diego.
