I had the pleasure of talking with Fedquip a few weeks ago and was pleased to learn a little more about our current number five member, than what I could only discern from posted comments and videos. The conversation took some unusual turns, which I’m sure you will agree, made for pretty entertaining conversation.

In a nutshell, Fedquip lives on Vancouver Island, works from home, rarely goes out and lives off fried rice. For anyone who can relate to this simplistic summary of the man, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the following read:

When I asked if he cooked his own fried rice, he had this to offer:

Fedquip: No, I don't cook at all. A childhood incident scared me from entering kitchens...my lovely girlfriend enjoys cooking and I won't ever stop her.

Persephone: Does your fear of kitchens include cleaning them? What happened when you were a kid?


Fedquip: No I have no problem cleaning, in fact that’s pretty much my job since she does the cooking....My fear must have developed when I was in Scouts. I was a troop leader and our troop had to cook for the whole camp. Pancakes it was and I undercooked them. One by one, all the scouts and leaders dumped the pancakes in the garbage and complained loudly...its the only explanation. Ever since, when I have to cook I am generally not found until the next day bloodied and in the fetal position muttering crazy talk...so I’m told. That could be inaccurate.

Persephone: Huh! I thought you were gonna say a big pot of boiling water dropped on you, or something. That happened to a friend of mine. I do understand scouts can be harsh food critics.

Fedquip may have been seen in this position following a certain incident on Videosift a while back, where in a Siftquisition, he was made to disassemble his channel, Throw Away Your T.V., but his training with the Scouts must have put him in good stead for surviving such harsh treatment, because the man stuck with it and is still a cornerstone of the site today.

Here’s what he had to say about that experience:

Persephone: I'm sorry your channel got pulled. Are you ok with how that was handled? Is the Sift too harsh a place?

Fedquip: I was a little sad, because I rerouted my community there not too long before that happened, told them it was a great friendly place...then I got labeled as an evil self promoter...It didn’t make sense to me because I was trying to promote the sift, I just wanted the controversy to go away.

Persephone: The sift relies on rerouted people. Look at Ant's ring-ins.

Fedquip: Well, I had just got hired by AOL News so it was probably best that I focus on that job and let TayTV die an honorable death.

Persephone: Is there still a possibility of TayTv? Give Videosift a run for its money?

Fedquip: No, I prefer working with the Sift instead of against it

TayTV is 100% retired, time for new projects.

Talking to the man, it is easy to understand why he was so passionate about promoting the Sift, why he was so excited about the Sift. Basically if he’d known some programmers who he could have collaborated with, he probably would have started a similar site himself. Here’s how he got involved with Videosift:

Persephone: Tell me about how you started sifting.

Fedquip: That was a long time ago, I’m gunna check and see when my first sift was. One year and nine months ago...what a random video

I had a video blog at the time, whose purpose was to sort out the good videos on the internet, I must have stumbled onto the Sift as I searched for videos... In fact the Sift is pretty close to what I always wanted my video site to be. Before I had heard of the Sift I had been talking to the Pligg people in building a Digg-like Video site.

I didn't get too far. I looked at the Pligg code and decided I was in over my head, I found the sift not too long after.

Persephone: What shape/form did you envision it, when you first came up with the idea? What would you have called it?

Fedquip: Throw away your TV - I visioned it as an archive of categorized videos, I wanted it to look like my TayTV video blog (now retired) with the option for users to vote on the posts. It’s probably why I became such a chronic Videosift user, I just loved the idea.

Persephone: Did you have anyone you could have collaborated with to get it up and running? I think if Dag hadn't run across James and Lucky, he couldn't have pulled it off, either.

Fedquip: At the time no. Yeah, Dag and the fellas have done a great job.

Fedquip is not without his own personal success. For those who value lifestyle and the internet, I’m sure you’ll be envious to know that he works from home on the exciting new site, Mahalo. Here’s how he describes his job and the site:

Fedquip: I left AOL News after ten months and I got a new job with Mahalo.com.

It's a research project of wikipedia sized proportions. I've never been so excited for an online project

Persephone: Great. Tell me about it.

Fedquip: Well, its from the brain of Jason Calacanis. He's an early web millionaire, he's basically hired an army to build a new search engine/social site.

Persephone: What's the main difference between it and say wikipedia?

Fedquip: The focus is more on providing the best links, as opposed to encyclopedic entries.

Persephone: Is it proving a hit?

Fedquip: Just a quick example here for "Videosift" -

Oh yeah, traffic is always on the rise, we are in beta and new features are being pumped out almost every week. I plan on working with Mahalo for many years.

They also hired my girlfriend, which means we get to work together from home, which really is a dream come true.

Persephone: Great! What do you each do?

Fedquip: Well, she is a writer, so she spends her day writing "Guide Notes" for top ranking entries on Mahalo. Myself, I work in the Social Department - So I check the incoming links and build pages out of the links that users submit.

Persephone: Can you give an example of something typical that she would write? How do you check out incoming links?

Fedquip: Take the Search result for "Adam Curtis" as an example, it started off as just a list of links submitted by Mahalo users. My job is take those links sort out the bad from the good (sometimes we get spam) and create the wiki page like so... Karen would write the guide note down the sidebar.

Mahalo's goal, is to have a page like this for every single "search term" imaginable....big project

Persephone: Is the founder from Hawaii?

Fedquip: No, but I can see how you would think that.

Persephone: Do you know why he called it this?

Fedquip: I don't unfortunately, "thank you" maybe he's just saying thanks to all the contributors?

Persephone: Gratitude always feels good.

Dag and I have been co-workers and have also been through the experience of being together at home while he worked on Videosift. Whereas working together as teachers actually lead to us falling in love, the other experience was not such a good one. Dag says it’s because I don’t like him in my domain. Anyway, here’s what Fedquip says he and his girlfriend do, when they’re not collaborating on Mahalo together:


Persephone: So what do you guys do for fun?

Fedquip: We have our hobbies. We started a saltwater tank last year and it provides use with hours of amusement. We also just got a praying mantis eggsack, looking forward to it hatching...umm we watch lots of hockey too.

Persephone: Do you travel together much?

Fedquip: We do when we can, working online isn't for everybody, It's a minimalist (see low paying) lifestyle, if we do travel its to visit family.

Persephone: Your work must be rewarding in other ways... do you have far to travel to see family?

Fedquip: Yeah, as long as I can pay rent I'm happy, before I worked online I slaved away in corporate call centers (outsourcers) It's been just over a full year that I've been working full time online, from home, and no doubt this is the best industry to be part of. I love being part of the online economy. I live in BC and my family lives in Ontario, so it's a fair distance.

At this point in the discussion I decided it was safe to start getting philosophical with Fedquip, so asked him this question:


Persephone: What do you think of the idea that the internet is an expression of an evolving human consciousness? When you're working on Mahalo, do you feel like you're tuned into this? Is it inspiring?

Fedquip: Do you mind if I smoke a bowl before I answer that?

Persephone: Go ahead!

Fedquip: I kid, too early for that. The whole idea of the internet is enough to make anybody philosophical. I truly believe only good things will come out of the internet, especially when you consider millions more are expected to come online within the next couple of years. I've been using the internet for over 10 years now so I've seen much of the evolution first hand. What is going to be interesting, is to watch is the next generation of kids who have grown up with the internet. How are they going to use it?

Persephone: Do you know kids like this? I met one yesterday. He made me feel old when I told him I never saw a computer before I was a teenager. He said, “Is that like when bread used to cost 20c a loaf?”

Fedquip: Ha ha..I've met plenty of these kids online, I dont really hang out with kids in the real world.

Persephone: Who do you hang out with in the real world?

Fedquip: I mainly hang out with my girlfriend. I have a few friends I watch hockey with. I also play hockey three times a week, so that’s as far as I go for a social life.

Like his pledged dedication to his new job, Fedquip looks to be involved with Videosift for the long haul. Here’s what he says about the future for Videosift and why he loves being a part of it:


Persephone: Where do you see Videosift heading?

Fedquip: I’m not too sure. That’s a really good question. It’s a pretty tight, dedicated community, where the users have fun. There are lots of talented users and the Sift will only go as far the users take it. Videosifting is a talent that appears to be in demand in web 3.0, so the Sift better watch out because some of them might be wooed away to paying websites

Persephone: What do you love most about the Sift?

Fedquip: The videos, because you can always can get a good video on the Sift. It does what it advertises, which is sifting the large video sites for the gems. This is a concept that is still very much in demand.

Persephone: Are there any favourite videos you'd like to link to?

Fedquip: Well, my playlist of the best sifts are probably my most favourite.

I guess that would be my other favourite thing about the sift..playlists

Persephone: From your playlist, is there one video you'd like to share for this post?

Fedquip: Well, lets go with the top - because without it...we would have never had this conversation.

Persephone: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Fedquip: Ummm, no, just thanks for always for the great website, I love the Sift.

My thanks go to Fedquip for sharing a little of himself with us and for his contribution to the Sift. The kind of input that he and many many others have made to the site so far, have made it the fantastic place it is today.

Aloha

Gracias

Arigato

Danke shon

Etc, etc