HEADLINE: The geek master with a website hit
BYLINE: by Heather Brooking

BODY:

BRIAN Houston calls himself a 'hobby geek' rather than the real deal, but nevertheless he has managed to spawn an entire online community of geeklets from across the globe.
There have now been more than half a million visits to his website www.videosift.com each month. This includes around 600 super-geeks who have been granted varying rights and privileges to moderate the site on a merit basis.

And despite being in operation for less than a year, the Coolangatta-based operation has just been awarded 'best video aggregator' and one of the 'web's most useful sites' by US publication PC World Magazine.

Mr Houston says the appeal of his website is very simple. ''There are more than 200 million video clips on YouTube alone and about 65,000 new ones are uploaded every
day,'' he said. ''These sites are really popular and people like to view the clips and share them with their friends. But with so many clips, it's difficult to find the good ones and sort the wheat from the chaff.''

pt 2

VideoSift essentially does just that.

''There are plenty of sites out there designed to help do this with text files, for example Google,'' said Mr Houston.
''But the problem with Google is that it can't see the content - you need a person to do that - Google just sees a
media file.

''So what VideoSift does is allow people to look at the material, identify the good from the bad, give them tags of keywords so people can look them up and basically let people share the good stuff and sift out the (rubbish).''

The site has many features including specialist channels for niche markets and a NSFW tag to let people know when a clip is not suitable for viewing at work.
''Part of the idea of the site is to allow people to create their own content channels,'' he said.

''So we have a music channel, a geek channel - which has things like the latest videos coming out and science stuff and Star Wars and Star Trek - and a comedy channel and politics channel. ''We also have a cute channel and all the clips of puppies and kittens show up there. That one is very popular.''

The site also features discussion boards which allow users to chat about different clips and have debates. ''I really don't have to do very much with the site at all because the users are doing most of the work, such as posting videos, rating them and posting comments on them,'' he said.
''Really it's just a matter of managing the personal issues.''

pt 3

Personal Issues?

''You'd be surprised how many personal issues can crop up,'' he says, laughing.
''Sometimes the debates can get a bit heated and I might have to step in. There are rules on the site about the kind of
content that can go up, for example we don't allow racist or super violent or 'adult' content at all - there are a lot of other
sites doing that.
''Sometimes there will be debate about whether a clip breaks the rules. Ultimately I get the final call on that but the
high-level users have the power to ban other users if someone is blatantly breaking the rules.''

He said the site was a meritocracy where high-level users who contributed popular content could acquire site moderation privileges. ''There's about 50 to 60 people with full site privileges and they are all power-users,'' he said.

''People who are posting a lot of videos that are getting good reviews can get a higher rank on the site.''
Surprisingly, USA-born Mr Houston didn't take the traditional path to his role as a geek grandmaster.

''When I went to university, computers didn't seem to be the big thing so I actually did a degree in international
relations,'' he said.

''I wanted to be a diplomat or work in the foreign service. But in '95, '96 I went to Osaka and got a job managing an
internet cafe and I kind of got into it that way.''

''While I was in Japan, I met my wife, who is an Aussie,'' he said. ''We eventually moved back to Australia because she wanted to be near her family. At some point a got a bit frustrated with the corporate life. When I turned 36 I decided I didn't want to be in a cube for the rest of my life, tied to a mortgage, insurance and little things in suburbia.''

So in a bold move, the couple sold the family home and took their daughter Sophia, then seven years old, and son
Sage, then four, on a round-the-world trip.
''We went back-packing and obviously we couldn't do long treks because of the kids so we did little walks,'' he said.
''I showed my kids where I grew up in Alaska and we also went to Canada, Spain, Ireland - where we visited some of my wife's relatives - and Japan. On their return, Mr Houston couldn't face going back to the corporate world.
''I decided to do some consultancy work for Brainmates, which is a new media product management company, rather than working full-time,'' he said.

''That gave me time to work on other ideas.''

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Wow - how did you track this one down? The Bulletin is my local paper.

Nothing escapes the Sift Lords....

Dag, Heather called and said her check bounced again.

*quality

Gold Star member swampgirl has awarded rickegee one published post for this quality Sift Talk contribution.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I must admit, it was a pretty puffy piece. I wanted to focus on the site, but they wanted more of a “local personality” article. I told her I don’t really have a personality, but she didn’t listen.

The reporter, Heather, was actually very nice to me. The Gold Coast Bulletin, like many papers in Australia, leans a bit toward the tabloid side – so I was worried she was going to ask me about my sex life.

In answer to the earlier question, I FINALLY received my copy of the article via international mail from the Houstons the other day. Page 3 quality photos of you, dag.

Thank you, swampgirl, for the quality point. I hope it sticks.










(LexisNexis is my other vice)

Super-geeks? Promotion! I gotta promotion!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Yeah, they were laying it on pretty heavy with the "geek" stuff. I probably should have removed my pocket protector.

Can it please!

You're welcome Rickegee. How about posting some scans of that article for us

Super-geeks huh? Maybe by this time next year we'll graduate to Uber-Geek status.

:::goes to browse for some new Shatner sifts :::

My life is now complete. Can we get multicoloured 'SG' icons instead of diamonds?

Nice article rick, thanks for posting!
*quality

ah, I see SiftBot is wise to us now!

Dag, scan in the photo, so we can prove traditional print media wants to dry hump you.

LOL.. "personal issues"

Hey, on this subject you need too make a Campaign 2008 channel / Collective. I think this is the hot new area of videos. Really, and when you talk to the press you can mention it. No, really, I'm betting you could make a "neatorama" type webpage JUST out of campaign videos (millions of them are coming...)

Wow I read the piece again and they made Dag sound like a total loser...

I'm really just hoping that they photographed dag with his Obi Wan robes on and his 30-sided die in his hand.

FoxTV did this kind of thing to a friend of mine. They innocently offered her a free Valentine's Day makeover for a light-sounding "Find Love" piece and then presented her as the most desperate, needy, grotesque single woman in Texas.