Media Release
On July 17, 2000, Cornerstone distributed a news release
describing its success with its trivia service. It follows
below, along with one of the stories it inspired and another
item, about Trivial Pursuit, that quotes us prominently.
For photos, including images of Paul judging and running
trivia events, drop by the Photo Gallery.
CORNERSTONE NEWS RELEASE
Lousy Web site doing fantastic
e-business
(OTTAWA: July 17, 2000) At a time when corporations are
losing fortunes on their e-business strategies, a small Web
site in Ottawa is making a ton of cash selling trivia. And
it doesn't even take credit cards.
People around the world have been playing the weekly
games at the Trivia Hall of FameTM (http://www.triviahalloffame.com)
since 1996, but in the past year Webmaster Paul Paquet has
been flooded with requests for his trivia-writing services.
"I think I must be one of the only people in Canada who
can make a living strictly off Web site earnings," muses
Paquet, who credits the site's sudden success to Who Wants
to be a Millionaire. "The show has reminded content
providers that people will come back week after week for
good trivia. I'm not a millionaire yet, but at this rate,
who knows?"
Ironically, the site isn't exactly textbook e-business.
"I have no real strategy, I don't take credit cards and I
don't use the latest Web technology. But it's very easy to
do business with me."
Paquet says that writing trivia is a lot harder than it
sounds. "Questions have to be fun, they have to be well
written and they have to be as accurate as possible. You
have to write very carefully to highlight a question's 'wow'
factor, without leaving room for alternate answers. It's a
tricky business."
Paquet's customers fall into two categories. Most buy a
4,250-questions database, which sells for $425 US (roughly
$635 Canadian). Some, however, ask him to write custom
questions. "I'm doing a hush-hush project now for a contest
that will be run by a very, very large American media
corporation. They needed 8000 questions aimed at an
intelligent high school audience. That's my whole summer
right there."
To help fill the demand, Paquet has started using some of
his regular players. "The online game has fans across
Canada, as well as in India, Australia and, especially, the
United States. I also have regular players in the
Netherlands, South Africa, Britain ... all over the
place."
For more, contact Paul Paquet at (613) 565-7847 or at <paul@triviahalloffame.com>.
( Top)
Story in the Ottawa Business
Journal
Posted Monday July 17, 2000; reprinted with permission
Trivia buff pockets profits
By Claire Tremblay <mailto:ctremblay@inbusiness.com>
Ottawa Business Journal
Who wants to be a millionaire? Ottawa Webmaster Paul
Paquet does - and if the last four months are anything to go
by there's every chance he will be.
Paquet says he has made a not-so-trivial pile of cash
from his Ottawa Web-site www.trivialhalloffame.com, that is
benefiting from the success of TV quiz show Who Wants to be
a Millionaire. Over the past four months, trivia buffs from
Australia to Canada have clicked on to the site.
"The show has reminded content providers that people will
come back week after week for good trivia. I'm not a
millionaire yet, but at this rate, who knows," Paquet says.
Paquet's customers fall into two categories. Most buy a
4,250-questions database for approximately $600. Some,
however, ask him to write custom questions.
"I'm doing a hush-hush project now for a contest that
will be run by a very, very large American media
corporation," he says. "They needed 8,000 questions aimed at
an intelligent high school audience. That's my whole summer
right there."
His interest in trivia started out as a bit of fun. In
1995, Paquet decided to sign up to become a contestant on
Jeopardy. Paquet passed the Jeopardy exam and waited for a
year to make an appearance on the show.
"Jeopardy usually picks out three times the amount of
people it actually needs," he says. "Unfortunately, although
I passed the exam, I didn't get to appear on the show."
There was however, a spin-off from the experience. While
training for Jeopardy, Paquet came up with several thousands
of trivia questions that formed the basis of his Web site.
He has also written trivia questions for books and game
boards. [ED Note: This isn't correct ... the database
came before the Jeopardy experience but this site was
created as a result.]
Competition in the trivia industry is fierce, and
question repetition is not desirable. So Paquet trawls local
libraries and encyclopaedias for new trivia questions. The
other problem is getting question and answers that are
accurate.
"Even the Britannica has mistakes in it once and a
while," says Paquet. "You develop an instinct as to which
sources are more accurate than others."
Another part of the job is making trivia interesting.
Some of the on-line trivia games include odd categories such
as Death Styles of the Rich and Famous, a quiz on how stars
have died.
"Questions have to be fun, they have to be well written
and they have to be as accurate as possible. You have to
write very carefully to highlight a question's `wow' factor,
without leaving room for alternate answers. It's a tricky
business," he says.
Paquet has an explanation for his trivial success.
"People want to show off," says Paquet. "For a lot of
well read people there isn't much opportunity to use the
knowledge you have picked up. People also like to show off
and they often mistake knowledge of trivia for raw
intelligence."
(This story was also covered in the Canadian business
magazine Profit.)
THE ACCIDENTAL DOT-COM
At a time when so many corporations are losing fortunes
on their e-business strategies, a small website in Ottawa is
making money -- selling trivia.
For four years, Ottawa writer and trivia buff Paul Paquet
(he's in the queue to appear on Jeopardy!) has amused people
around the world by offering weekly trivia games at his
website, triviahalloffame.com. In the past year, however, he
has suddenly been flooded with requests for his
trivia-writing services.
"I think I must be one of the only people in Canada who
can make a living strictly off website earnings," muses
Paquet, who credits the site's sudden success to the ABC-TV
program, Who Wants to be a Millionaire. "The show has
reminded content providers that people will come back week
after week for good trivia."
Ironically, Paquet's site isn't exactly textbook
e-business. "I have no real strategy," he says. "I don't
take credit cards and I don't use the latest Web technology.
But it's very easy to do business with me."
Paquet's customers fall into two categories. Most buy a
4,250-questions database, which sells for US$425. Some,
however, ask for custom questions. "I'm doing a hush-hush
project now for a contest that will be run by a very, very
large American media corporation," he says. "They needed
8,000 questions aimed at an intelligent high school
audience."
The Net came to his rescue: To help meet demand, Paquet
has started subcontracting the trivia-writing to some of his
regular players.
http://www.triviahalloffame.com
( Top)
Story in The State (South
Carolina); August 6, 2002
By BOBBY BRYANT (reprinted with permission)
Staff Writer
Proud Canadians remember the exact date.
Dec. 15, 1979. A kitchen table in Montreal, Quebec.
Two men: Chris Haney, a photo editor at The Gazette in
Montreal, and Scott Abbott, a sports reporter at The
Canadian Press. They were pals. They wanted to play
Scrabble. Nope: Their game was a shambles, a mess, with many
pieces missing.
Why don’t we make up our own game, one said. Yeah!
said the other. It was one of those moments when the
100-watt bulb snaps on over your head and the chorus sings.
Trivial Pursuit was conceived.
The friends and other partners spent the next two
years giving birth to it. They nearly went broke, but in
early 1982 at the New York Toy Fair, a game was born, and it
grew, and the friends got rich. And now, as Trivial Pursuit
basks in its 20th anniversary and the world continues its
not-so-trivial love affair with trivia, Canada is very
proud.
THE PLAYERS
QUESTION: What’s the big deal with Trivial Pursuit,
anyway?
ANSWER: Listen as one fan (by coincidence a
Canadian), Paul Paquet of Ottawa, explains the basic joy of
Trivial Pursuit.
“I can go forever sometimes,” says Paquet, 37, who
runs a trivia-based Internet business
(triviahalloffame.com). “It can be frustrating and
exhilarating. If you try too hard to get (the answer),
you’ll never think of it.
“But sometimes you’re asked the question and the
answer comes out of your mouth, and you have no idea where
you read it or heard it. . . . You almost go into a kind of
Zen thing — more stuff pops into your brain. Stuff just
comes to you from nowhere.
“It’s almost like some ghost or something whispered
it in your ear,” Paquet says. “It makes you wonder how your
brain is wired up.”
Brian Jordan of North Myrtle Beach, a corporal with
the Horry County Police Department, agrees: “You do almost
go ‘into the zone.’ You don’t even know (the answer) is
there until that question is asked.”
Jordan, 29, had been wired for trivia even before
Trivial Pursuit appeared two decades ago. On car trips, he
says, his family would make up trivia quizzes. When he saw
the first Trivial Pursuit games at age 9, his reaction was
simple: “ ‘I’ve got to have it!’ My mom bought it for me as
a Christmas present.”
It was the same for Susan Rooney, a 38-year-old Elgin
homemaker. When she saw the first Trivial Pursuit boxes in
Midlands stores about 1982, she had to have one. And it’s
still at her house.
“The board is totally worn out. We were hard-core
(players),” she says. “But all the pieces are here. Nothing
is missing.”
The game tickles “all these stupid facts in your
head,” Rooney says. “And it’s ‘Oh, yeah, I remember that.’ ”
Rooney and her friends — Trivial Pursuiters whose
game time lately has been thinned by marriage and kids —
usually would play men vs. women. The men typically stuck to
the Sports category and lost, she says, while the women
grabbed all the other categories and won. That might be
trivia, but it’s not trivial.
THE PRODUCT
QUESTION: How successful has Trivial Pursuit been?
ANSWER: Consider the numbers. Forty-five editions
of Trivial Pursuit have been produced since 1982, selling 70
million games in 17 countries in 26 languages. (The current
retail price: about $30.)
; If the games industry is like fashion, with new
styles erupting every week, then Trivial Pursuit is the
industry’s blue jeans, an old favorite, says Mark Morris, a
spokesman for Hasbro Games. Hasbro markets and manufactures
Trivial Pursuit under license from the game’s creators.
(Trivia question: Where is Trivial Pursuit made? — A plant
in East Longmeadow, Mass.)
; People in the games industry talk about that day in
Montreal in 1979 the way automakers talk about the invention
of the wheel.
; “They were kind of going out on a limb there,”
Morris says. “This was kind of a bold move.”
At the time, adults played board games marketed
mostly for children —Scrabble, Monopoly — but no one was
making board games specifically for adults, Morris says.
“(Trivial Pursuit) created the category of adult board
games,” he says. “The questions in Trivial Pursuit were
geared (to adults).”
Haney, Abbott and their other backers in the game
“thought they’d capture the world at the toy fair” in 1982,
Morris says, “but the nay-sayers were lined up.” The game
was too expensive, the packaging was wrong, and on and on.
But the kinks were worked out, the game took off, and a star
was born. It’s dimmed somewhat because of the mammoth trivia
engine that is the Internet. But fans say the social aspect
of the game — groups of people playing it at parties — has
kept it going. Trivia-based TV shows, such as “Who Wants to
Be a Millionaire” and “Weakest Link,” also help.
; Haney and Abbott still live in Canada, Morris says,
and still consult on new editions of Trivial Pursuit. (Yes,
there’s a 20th-anniversary edition.) “They pay attention and
make sure there are certain standards,” Morris says. “Every
day, there is new trivia. There’s conceivably no end.
( Top)
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