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The birdman of Aylesbury
TUCKED away in a small corner of Aylesbury lies the empire of an internet entrepreneur.
His world-leading websites have more than 100,000 members hailing from Alaska to Iran.
Stephen Kirk runs a number of specialist on-line forums from his home in Wendover Road. Two of them, birdforum.net with 76,000 members, and shipsnostalgia.com with 30,500 members, are the most popular websites for their subject in the world.
The 48 year old, who is married with two children, says business is booming.
The first forum, dedicated to bird enthusiasts, went live in 2002.
"I thought it would be a hobby, just a bit of fun, but it ended up taking over my life. It is so big now. It's like running a very large town, there are good people in it and bad people who you have to ban, people who contribute a lot and people who contribute nothing."
Mr Kirk went full-time three years ago and employs five staff to maintain the sites. Alongside his bird and shipping forums, he operates a number of sites ranging in topics from gardening to cooking. And many more, including a vegetarian and nostalgia site, are on the way.
The websites are all free to the user, with money made from selling space to advertisers.
"People have not got a lot of money at the moment and they can't afford to spend a lot on their hobby," he said. "So they choose to pursue their hobby from home. The sites are growing at their fastest rate ever - an average of 60 new members join the bird forum every day."
"As it grows food manufacturers come on to you and then insurance companies, all attracted by the sheer numbers.
"I get enquiries every day from people wanting to advertise."
He added: "People are always knocking Aylesbury. But thousands and thousands of people from all over the world are relying on a service that was started and is run right here."
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Weather for Aylesbury
Tuesday 07 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -8 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: -5 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: North east
