LinkGuard's map will need to be 40 terabytes in size. He's teamed up with Dell computer to build the computer network needed to manage the map. If he succeeds, customers will be able to pay him to keep their links up to date automatically. Mike Bergman isn't worried about broken links. His passion is Web information that can't be linked to, at least not by traditional Web addresses.
Consumers encounter it every day at online stores, search engines and other database-driven sites.
Instead, they create customized pages on the fly, pulling information out of a database and dumping it onto your screen. That works great. But like the sound of the proverbial tree falling in the forest, this information effectively doesn't exist unless someone is there to observe it. Search engines, which index the Web by following links, can't see it because it only appears in response to a specific request. At BrightPlanet, the company Mr. Bergman and some colleagues launched last year, the goal is to create simple, effective ways of culling information from the 200,000 Web databases he believes are out there.