Joe Firmage is back. Very bright, very off the wall. He made his first $24 million before he
was even 24 years old, and another billion or so a few years later.
Then Silicon Valley crashed, and a mutual friend told me that Joe was down to his last two
million or so.
Every once in a while, he sends out an email. A few years ago, he put full-page ads in 10-20
major newspapers. Email is easier, and who reads newspapers anyway?
Here is his latest email.
yrs, andreas www.andreas.com
Hello friend,
I've wanted to write this message for more than half a decade.
In recent years I've asked you on rare occasions to believe and subscribe to endeavors which I've suggested are critical. This is the most important request I've ever made of you. Please read it carefully.
THE BEGINNING OF THE DIGITAL UNIVERSE
Imagine it's July of 2007. Imagine that in every month for the previous year a new "Digital Universe portal" has been launched. Imagine that each portal has been developed as the ultimate ad-free destination on the Web, for a particular subject you care about. The Earth Portal. The Energy Portal. The Solar System Portal. The Nanotechnology Portal. The Soccer Portal. The SCUBA portal. Imagine that each of these portals is a dazzling destination of advertising-free information services, providing educational links, news headlines, online courses, IPTV and IP-radio broadcasts, moderated chat rooms and forums, and the best books available. Imagine that these portals have been built by both public contributions and expert review.
Imagine the Health Portal launches, and like the release of a major cinematic feature film, is much anticipated. It features a manipulable, explorable 3D human body. You will be able to fly into the heart to see what a heart attack looks like. You will be able to explore the human eye and examine the LASIK procedure and its effects. Teachers will be able to take their students on a "Fantastic Voyage" through the human bloodstream, and see how cells work. Visitors will be able to watch IPTV programs on all subjects surrounding health and medicine, on demand, just when they are needed.
*****GET INVOLVED NOW*****
Now step back to the present, today. It's January 17, 2006. The pilot release of the Digital Universe (http://DigitalUniverse.net) has launched. It reveals a blueprint -- and only a blueprint -- of what this remarkable information resource will ultimately provide to you, your children and your grandchildren.
This pilot release of the Digital Universe provides not just a preview of a magnificent long-term project, but it offers you the opportunity to get involved, by subscribing to the Internet services bundled with it now, today, thereby supporting the growth and evolution of the Digital Universe, and it opens the door for you to contribute your time and energy to its realization.
In short, we are starting a movement to "take back the Web."
A BRIEFING ON THE DIGITAL UNIVERSE
After several years of concentrated work by many experts in technology, science and media, we are now ready to introduce a pilot version of the Digital Universe and its accompanying Internet Information Services.
The Digital Universe is an effort to create an authoritative, advertising-free network of portals to the larger World Wide Web. Download the software at http://DigitalUniverse.net.
Why is this important?
After spending 17 years in the IT industry, I have come to believe that the Web will either liberate you from the chains of the political-economic machinery of modernity, or it will enslave you. The outcome of this epochal debate will be determined by YOU. Either a critical number -- a critical mass -- of people will devote their Internet dollars to a truly public information system, or they won't.
That is the question that I am posing to you, at this moment... right here, right now.
ADVERTISING IS NOT INFORMATION, INFORMATION IS NOT ADVERTISING
The Digital Universe is an endeavor founded upon the notion that people everywhere want, need and will purchase their most basic information services from a global enterprise committed to delivering the most important information in the most neutral, private, secure and non-commercial way, and in a manner that will support the organizations they care about.
With your help, we will present news in the most humble and honest manner known to journalism; we will present a directory of the Web's best resources with the most unbiased methodologies known to netizens, including your own commentary; we will map the emerging universe of IPTV and IP-radio with the highest integrity that can be mustered from the combined efforts voyagers on the Web.
In short, we hope to engage you to help create a new kind of searchable, navigable directory of the best that the Internet can offer, free from the corrupting influences of advertising, powered by open source software wherever possible, and dedicated to your needs, not those of any kind of commercial interest.
IT'S YOUR WEB
In the process, you can directly shape the future of the Digital Universe. First, you can sign up and change your personal email box to you@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx You can sign up for nationwide dial-up and DSL access through the Digital Universe. We will protect your privacy. We will never exploit your private information for profit. We will provide you with an increasingly diverse range of useful information services. We will do this because the infrastructure powering the Digital Universe -- ManyOne (http://ManyOne.net) -- can never and will never be governed or owned by Wall Street. We can do this because the ManyOne platform has been designed from the ground up to respect content contributions from the public, combining that awesome resource with expert review. We can do these things because we have painstakingly designed an institution capable of doing so, with a mission to do so.
I hope that you will understand and agree that an information system governed by civil society, rather than economic interests, is so vital for our families and our communities and ultimately our world.
The software that you download, install and explore is preliminary and will take many years to fully develop, but the vision it expresses is not only necessary, it is inevitable. It will evolve and improve rapidly. Over time, it will deliver the basic information system needs that support your daily life.
That fact, indeed, is why I request that you sign up and help make history. I ask you to evaluate the free version of our service and then upgrade your subscription in recognition that we are catalyzing something very special and very rare.
Join me. Join us. Make your new online home @DigitalUniverse.net. We will preserve and respect your trust. This is an enterprise worthy of your support. It will cost you little, if anything, beyond your current budget for premium Internet services.
Imagine what may happen when millions of people choose an alternative to today's advertising-driven, commercially-polluted Internet. Over the next few years, the Digital Universe can yield the most powerful transformation of media witnessed since the birth of the Web.
With respect, Joe ______________________________________________________ Joseph P. Firmage Chief Executive Officer ManyOne Networks 100 Enterprise Way, Suite G370 Scotts Valley, CA 95066 831-438-9800, x160 www.DigitalUniverse.net www.ManyOne.net
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