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| People - Articles |
About Playak, its people and some friends.
About Playak
Playak is an independent initiative with the goal to be the worldwide paddling portal. It was initiated by Jeroen Houttuin: "Back in 1996 I had just started my personal homepage. Since I had huge difficulties finding all the cool kayaking spots people were talking about and I knew that others were having similar problems, I decided to share my hard-earned route descriptions in a special kayaking corner on my homepage, code-named Great Kayak Surfing Waves. People found out about it and soon started sending my descriptions from spots around the world. In 1998 it was time to turn the whole thing into an independent web site, and the name playak.com was born."
By now, Playak is indeed the world's leading kayaking portal. The Kayahoo Links Database is the largest of its kind (it has more paddling links than Yahoo or DMOZ) and covers paddling disciplines from rafting to sea kayaking, dragon boating, polo and whitewater. The Kayak World Map is without competition, the Calendar and Kayak Database are the most complete you'll find anywhere and the News Watch scans 500 other web sites for the latest news, 365 days per year (and sends the most popular headlines to almost 10000 people in a daily newsletter format). These are just a few examples of what we mean when we claim to be the world's leading paddling portal. To see more examples, just type any paddling related question into Google :)
Core Team
These are the people that work on Playak almost daily.
| Who | Name and Location | Function |
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Jeroen Houttuin (formerly known as 'Joempie'), Zurich, Switzerland | A.k.a. Mr. Playak :-)
"I work on Playak full-time. I quit my cool management position at Switzerland's largest ISP in 2002 because I could no longer combine it with Playak. Since running Playak takes much more than just loads of time, namely real money, one of my main goals is a certain commercialisation of Playak. I want it to become self-financing and to support my programming habit :-) Keeping Playak 100% independent at the same time may seem like a small dilemma, but I think I'm managing quite well. I mainly work on programming new Playak services, marketing the site, managing partnerships and of course writing, collecting and editing content. I am always happy to receive feedback of any sort, so feel free to get in touch with me by clicking here. Presonal paddling preference: I consider myself a 'passionate softcore playboater'. " |
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Adrian Tregoning, South Africa | Adrian is a very active contributor/editor as well as an admin for many Playak services. "Whilst obtaining my degree in mechanical engineering I was involved in a little car accident. I hurt my neck in the process and the third party insurance claim that I received a while later was enough for me to start kayaking. So in April 2004 I took to the water. I really wish I had started earlier. River running, creeking and multi-day trips are my favorite types of boating. However you’ll still find me in my play boat or surf kayak any other time. As long as I am in the water, or around a body of water, I am happy. When not kayaking you will find me either windsurfing, fly fishing, reading, hiking, working on my website, photographing, camping or possibly even working!" |
Extended Team
The extended team are the people that occasionaly do editorial or admin work for Playak .
| Who | Name and Location | Function |
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Chris Joosse, Seattle | Chris is Playak's specialist for reviewing hardcore creeking products. "I'm more a creeker than anything else, but I'm an all-around boater. Playboating and squirt boating are fun, but given the choice, I'll take a good creek every time. I started paddling in 1998, and wish I'd started earlier. Fun facts: I brew excellent beer, am married, write software for a living, and always seem to have a side project in the works. Some of them include: |
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David Weber, Salt Lake City | David Weber joined Playak in 2004 by integrating the content of his former website boaterinformation.com into Playak. "David Weber is an over-educated jack-of-all trades (master of none). He likes slow walks on the beach, turtleneck sweaters and bananas. David Weber at various times has been (or still is) to varying degrees the Supreme Overlord of Boaterinformation.com, administrator for BoaterTalk.com, Contributing Editor for Kayak Magazine and a freelance writer for Paddler Magazine. He began paddling in 1984, whitewater kayaking in 1993 and was fully house trained by 1996." |
Most content on Playak is submitted to us by our readers, but the bottom line is of course that we are always looking for people to join the team. It does requires a bit more than just copy-pasting content. We work with MS Office, Photoshop, Dreamweaver etc to do spell checking, image retouching and HTML editing. Of course we can't offer any money, but we can get you world-famous :-) Just contact Jeroen if you would like to join the team.
The following people are not currently on the team, but they were at one point or another:
| JP Renaud, New Zealand |
| Oliver Castle, England |
| Tim (tao) Fullwood, Ireland |
| Mark Burton, Norway |
Tim Sadler, England |
Perri Rothemich, USA |
| David Arnaud, France |
| Beat Rüttimann, Switzerland |
| Paul Klarenberg, Switzerland |
Special thanks go to Corran Addison, Hannah Paul and Ieske Godwaldt for their great support during the early years.
Very special thanks go to our biggest advertisers/supporters: Jackson Kayak, Kokatat, Legacy Paddlesports, Palm Equipment, Rapid Media and Riot Kayaks!
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