Alex Murdoch, Entertainment Reporter
11mar06

STOKED . . . Ben Petro kicks up his heels over the success of his Google Idol site which has scored an amazing 93,000 hits in its first week. Picture: Peter Wallis

TWO weeks ago it was a crazy idea. Now it's one of the hottest things on the internet.

Brisbane man Ben Petro has harnessed the energy of lip-syncing musical wannabes around the world. His website Google Idol, which invites people to submit clips of themselves hamming it up to their favourite music, scored 93,000 visitors in its first week.

The site invites viewers to vote on which of the clips is a winner. More than 28,000 people voted in the seven days after it opened. Now in its ninth day of operation, the site is being monitored daily by The Los Angeles Times, which is following it like a sport on its own online site.

Even the people who have arguably had more success turning a crazy internet idea into a hit have been impressed.

Only two days after opening the site, Mr Petro, 27, received an email from the senior business manager of Google: "Great idea – thanks very much for promoting Google Video."

"On the first morning I already had 300 votes and I nearly fell off my chair. I thought that was brilliant," said Mr Petro, who is not affiliated with either Google or the Idol franchise. "It was definitely a buzz."

Mr Petro said he stumbled on to the idea while watching clips of people lip-syncing and hamming it up in front of their webcams on Google Video.

He said two Dutch girls, who had racked up a total of 15 videos, stood out.

"As I was watching them, I realised their site was getting 65,000 hits a week and I realised they've become a cult hit in the Netherlands and they've got thousands and thousands of fans who come back every day," Mr Petro said.

He said it did not take long to realise the phenomenon had become a bit of a fad craze – and he wanted a piece of the action.

"It just sort of hit me that I thought that we should have a little competition between them and let the public vote and Google Idol just popped into my mind," Mr Petro said.

He said the first prize for the lip-syncing competition was to become a GIdol and to be inducted into a Hall of Fame.

"Most people just want to get their 15 minutes of fame," Mr Petro said.

But just what he will get out of his brainchild remains to be seen.

"At the moment the pleasure of creating a website that's had a lot of traffic," he said. Mr Petro said he originally had planned on attracting sponsors for prizes, but he doesn't want to look as though he's capitalising on the idea.

Source: The Courier Mail