Tama Easton

Tamatea Carl Easton (born 30 January 1974 in Christchurch), known as Tama Easton, is the creator of the New Zealand sports and recreation internet forum Vorb.

Early life
Easton was born in Christchurch on 30 January 1974. Early on in his life, his family moved to Sussex, Great Britain, for long enough for him "to pick up enough of an English accent to get singled out when [he] returned to New Zealand".

Education
In 1981 his family came back to New Zealand and settled in Wellington. Easton attended Clifton Terrace Model School from 1981 to 1986, followed by Wellington High School, from which he graduated in 1991. In 1992 and 1993, he studied at Victoria University towards degrees in Sociology and Education, which he did not finish.

Computer exposure
In 1981, Easton got his first computer, a ZX81 with 1 kB of RAM. As he was not able to afford the $16.95 needed to buy tapes of games for the computer, he developed his own games. This started his interest in computers and technology. Easton was online in either 1989 or even 1988 at a speed of 2.4 kbit/s long before many others had heard of the internet.

In the book The Art of Videogames, which explores how philosophy of the arts theories developed to address traditional art works can also be applied to videogames, the author acknowledges Easton as an "invaluable source of gaming discussion".

Mountain biking
Easton got into mountain biking in 1993 while living in Halfway Bush, Dunedin. A serious hobby developed out of this, and he saw himself flatting with like-minded people. Having a "tendency to break parts of the bike", he took up employment at the Wellington mountain bike shop 'Mud Cycles', where he stayed until 1999.

History
In July 2000, Easton set up an email list called "Vaguely Organised – Ride Bikes" to better coordinate social rides with friends. In November 2000, he bought the domain name "www.vorb.org.nz" and set up a small static website hosting some stories and photos of their trips on a dozen pages. It was supposed to be a private site for a circle of friends. Based on feedback and encouragement, Easton transformed the site to a public forum during 2001. In 2004, the site was a finalist in the 2004 NetGuide Web Awards and was receiving 13,000 unique browsers a month.

Easton quit his day job and started working on Vorb full-time at the beginning of 2005. By June 2008, Vorb received 74,000 unique browsers a month.

Vorb has been available for mobile phone browsing since August 2005.

Easton announced his retirement from Vorb in August 2009.

Reputation
Vorb has an excellent reputation. One commentator, criticising a commercial website built for a government agency, referred to Vorb as the prime example of how to set up an internet forum in a way the target community will embrace it.

Some quotes from the Vorb forum give further insight about the website's reputation, and that the website's reputation is intrinsically interlinked with Easton's reputation:

Tama, what You've done for mountain biking on the web in my opinion is the best thing since oil dampened suspension.

The magic thing about Vorb is that it is a virtual embodiment of an actual community. Most 'online' communities and social networks exist regardless of the technology. Although Vorb has long had the critical mass so that anybody in NZ who googles a cycling related topic gets a vorb link on the first page, it was a very much a functioning community long before that. Folks who spend a ferrit stuffed full of cash and just expect a userbase to come along always (I hope) get their just desserts [sic]. The fact that the Cycling community is a little tough to package up and sell to the man has its good and bad points. I think that Vorb has progressed at just the right pace to be something pretty unique in online communities. Cheers to Tama

Awards


Easton's website Vorb was ranked number one in the Hitwise award in the 'Sports - Cycling' category against other New Zealand websites in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

Easton won the inaugural 2007 'Cycling Champion of the Year' category of the Cycle Friendly Awards organised by Cycling Advocates' Network.

Vorb has been voted 'Best Sports And Recreation Site' at the NetGuide People's Choice Awards 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Personal life
Easton is engaged to Heather Bates. They live with their cat Sprocket in Mapua.

Easton is currently employed by the Tasman District Council as webmaster.