About us – Netpresent

NetPresent was founded in Zurich, Switzerland in April 2003 by Jeroen Houttuin MSc (A short CV is available here. Jeroen Houttuin was extremely active in the Internet Society and the IETF in the 1990’s. A list of publications by Jeroen Houttuin is available here)

Present

NetPresent uses much of the experience gained by developing PLAYAK.COM. All software and expertise that was developed for our own needs is now available to you through NetPresent. We offer our software as products, but we can also help you customize it to your needs or even run custom development projects.

History

By the time NetPresent was founded, most of our software was already available. Back in 1996, Jeroen started a web site about his favorite sport, whitewater paddling. The site, called PLAYAK.COM, became the world’s largest portal for whitewater sports in 1998. In 2000, PLAYAK was given the award ‘Web site of the Year’ by the readers of the international magazine ‘Playboating’.

From the start, PLAYAK has put a strong emphasis on quality content, but the exponential growth also depended on experiences made in those early days. Jeroen developed his own online marketing strategy called ‘Guerilla Marketing’.

The idea was that marketing should not cost any money yet at the same time be highly efficient. It involves Search Engine marketing and optimization, Usenet and Forum marketing and partnerships and mergers with other big players. This is when software such as ‘Incoming!’ and ‘Wapper’ was developed.

As the site and its community grew, there was an urgent need to automate the tasks of the editors, especially as Jeroen was (and still is) running the site as a hobby project beside his regular job. In this period, software that automates recurring tasks and enables user-driven content was developed.