A link to the world and beyond
SAN JOSE, Calif. — It’s a lofty ambition — the Internet equivalent of the Public Broadcasting Service, a user-supported resource that pays top academics to create authoritative maps, articles and links to third-party content related to virtually any scholarly topic.
But the vast scope of the project hasn’t stopped former high-flying Silicon Valley entrepreneur Joe Firmage from building Digital Universe, a commercial-free storehouse of information more than three years in the making.
A pilot version that debuted in January includes 50 or so portals, or entry points, on topics such as technology, the Earth and the solar system. Firmage says it will mushroom to at least 500 portals by next year and 10,000 by 2011.
Clicking on the Earth portal, for example, presents the visitor with links, vetted by experts for accuracy, to related articles, images, lists of frequently asked questions and other resources from sites such as MSNBC.com, NASA and the University of Hawaii’s department of geology and geophysics.
The Earth portal is also a jumping-off point to sub-portals on topics such as the atmosphere and hydrosphere, which in turn provide links to vetted content and further sub-portals. The approach is designed to give visitors a graphical means to find topics and understand how they are related to subjects in another category.
Little-known Digital Universe is trying to horn in on a crowded field, where sites such as Google Inc. and Wikipedia attract millions of visitors each month and already offer content on many scholarly topics.
Firmage and his backers say Digital Universe’s biggest asset is the trust readers will feel knowing that every link, graphic and article has been vetted by an army of academics.
“When you type something like ‘Arctic climate change’ as a search term, or discover it through this navigation system, you’re going to get the No. 1 link, the most highly evolved, most accurate, most comprehensive information resource for the arctic climate change subject area,” Firmage said.
Other portals included in the pilot are related to energy, national parks, nanotechnology and recycling. The site has been under construction since 2002 by Scotts Valley, Calif.-based ManyOne Networks, a 56-employee company that has received about $10 million in financing from Firmage and angel investors. Digital Universe seeks to improve on the ground broken by Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that allows anyone to contribute and edit articles. Wikipedia’s volunteer model offers an impressive body of content, boasting 1 million articles in English on everything from art deco to nuclear physics.
But Wikipedia’s open system has also led to the publication of fraudulent articles, and authors sometimes have undisclosed conflicts of interest, critics have charged.
Instead of relying on anonymous volunteers, Digital Universe will pay experts, mostly academics, to write encyclopedia articles and to round up outside video, audio, online chats and other resources.