Joe Firmage Refines His Message — Portals Will Compete With Wikipedia

Say That Again

from the still-not-that-clear dept

Two and a half years ago, Joe Firmage (famous for founding USWeb, infamous for some of his views about visitors from outer space) gave an interview with News.com about his latest project — and was barely comprehensible. Even the interviewer interrupts him halfway through to say he’s not sure what he’s talking about. In it, he discusses how commercialization is destroying “the architectural efficacy of navigation,” along with the idea of self-sustaining 3D portals of information supported by “a new caching system for the Mozilla browser that lets you present Xbox-quality experiences on a dial-up modem” using “a natural taxonomy where we use nature, as described by science, to describe what’s inside, and what is related to what.” As for how it would be financially viable, he expected to partner with ISPs to sell… um… ISP service that would let people access his new 3D portals. It’s not clear why they would do this, but he seemed to believe that being associated with his company would “be a Good Housekeeping seal of approval.” In the past two and a half years, it appears they’ve spent some time refining the idea, and are are now set to launch under the Digital Universe brand — though, the message has changed somewhat. There are still some similarities to that early “vision,” but talk of 3D portals seems to have gone away. Instead, it’s morphed into a Wikipedia wannabe with certain articles in certain portals approved by experts (apparently having a PhD. qualifies you). The plan still seems to be to support it by selling ISP services — but now the plan is to sell branded ISP services through various non-profits. Of course, nowhere is it explained why people will want to buy ISP service from a non-profit. In trashing Wikipedia, Firmage whips out the favorite example of Wikipedia-haters everywhere: “Surely you would want to be operated on by an M.D. when it comes time for surgery.” Indeed, we would, we’re still wondering what surgeons learned their craft from an encyclopedia. Different resources have different purposes — and it’s still not clear what the purpose of Firmage’s new “Universe” is, even without the 3D portals. Update: But wait… I’m being told that the 3D thing is still a part of this — which should be fun, because every other attempt at 3D navigation has failed miserably.