Site aims to put nonprofit research online

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 four 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.

By Dan Goodin, Associated Press

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