by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Jacques Paré

Age: 51

Occupation: Webmaster

Bio: This crafty Plateau creation and former economics professor is the brains behind www.planetcarpool.com, a continent-wide ride share service catering primarily to students. Launched just over four years ago, Jacques says, "I just wanted to have a Web site, because I love Web sites very much, you know. It could have been about cats, but I wanted it to be useful, so I started planetcarpool.com." Although his cyber-business continues to grow each month, for the time being Jacques has been supporting himself through his work in the field of chicken delivery, his career at St-Hubert BBQ commencing at approximately the same time he decided to devote himself to his Web site. "Maybe next year I will have enough customers to let me give up delivering chicken."

How Jacques earns money through his Web site: By limiting the number of posts people can reference for free, and charging $20 for a three-year full membership.

How he markets his product: By parking his well-marked planetcarpool.com-mobile outside of university campuses around North America, slapping on his way-cool planetcarpool.com hat and waiting for people to come up and ask him what the deal is. "I get way better results from this than from placing newspaper ads. And anyway, I much prefer to walk around in my hat than always delivering chicken."

Does he find his planetcarpool.com hat generally inspires confidence among potential customers? "Do they look at the hat, or do they look at the message, that is the question. Some people just see a man in a hat. But I hope that others will say to their friends that they have seen a man in a hat and on that hat is the address to a Web site called planetcarpool.com. And maybe if they need to go to Boston or somewhere they will then go to my Web site. This is what I hope."

How he manages to park his planetcarpool.com-mobile into primo promotional locations that would normally be off-limits: "I put on my St-Hubert coat, drive right up to the door of the Polytechnique, take out my St-Hubert delivery bag, and tell security that I'm going to do a delivery. Usually you don't even have to say anything, everybody knows St-Hubert. Then when I'm inside, I put on my planetcarpool.com hat, and hey, between the advertising on my car and my hat, I get a lot of promotion done in 20 minutes. You know, [when you don't have much money] you have to work with what you have."

Something that should, theoretically, bum his flow but doesn't: An Ontario court judgement demanding that he pay Trentway-Wagar bus services approximately $7,500 for unfair competition, and another $2,000 in fines to the Ontario government. "But I'm not going to pay it. Anyway, I have no assets."

Childhood ambition: To become a doctor.

Musical preferences: Classic rock.

One film he saw recently and dug: The Terminator.

Literary preferences: The Economist, Fortune, L'Actualité.

Words of wisdom: "Be kind with all people."

Comments? dimwit@openface.ca