It has been two years in the making. But finally, last Friday night at the Statik Nite Club on Yorkville, saw the launch of what looks like the best Caribbean entertainment site on the Web. This is the way of the future, and Ivan Harrilal and Andrew Ackloo, who are among Toronto’s top web site developers, knew that was the way to go to capture surfers looking for information on the Caribbean entertainment scene. It was inevitable that someone would come along and put everything on one web site. But it had to be someone knowledgeable about the Caribbean party scene. Toronto born, but with very strong Trinidadian roots, Ivan fits the bill to a T. When he is not playing pan with the Sweetness Steel Band, you’ll find him and close friends checking out the entertainment scene almost every weekend. In a way you can say that the seed of the idea for fetenet.com germinated with him, but once he shared his thoughts with his business partner, Andrew, who is a technician/artist in his own right, the site was born. Andrew is Guyanese born, but lived in Antigua before finally settling here in Toronto. The dynamics of their lifestyles, both at work and play, plus a serious appreciation of the evolving Caribbean entertainment scene, shows in the layout of the site. Before fetenet.com came into existence, both men had ventures in other computer projects. Andrew, an entrepreneur, was an investor in a downtown service providing hourly web time for those who did not have access from their homes. But with computers becoming cheaper and more families purchasing units, that service was discontinued, and he moved immediately into Web site development. Partnering with Ivan, already a young veteran in the computer industry, they began Metamage Inc. which today has an impressive list of corporate clients. Needless to say, their success in this highly competitive area hasn’t been a walk in the park. The two men spend extremely long hours before their state-of-the-art Macs in their Bay Street environment. Of late they have had to add more staff to keep up with the demand for their services and it looks like this growth will continue in the foreseeable future. The fetenet.com site is quite user friendly. Its motto is “We are Caribbean”. As soon as you log onto the site you are invited to take a tour of news and events, the music scene, peoples and places, links and business. Once you become familiar with the site, you might go straight to the section which deals with coming events. There is the yellow template, “What’s On this Weekend’, and once you go to that page, you can truly appreciate the active party scene that exists in Toronto. Fetenet.com is determined to be fully inclusive, meaning that you will find all types of Caribbean entertainment, including Calypso, Reggae, Soca, Chutney, Zouk and all the traditional offerings from the region. There are also links which will take you to various Caribbean radio stations, chat rooms, horoscopes, personals, and eventually invite you on a tour of the latest in the entertainment scene in each Caribbean Island. But there are two areas in fetenet.com which I think will generate the most interest. One is the Carnival scene complete with stunning photos from all the centres where the Caribbean community has settled abroad. There is a dedicated section on Toronto’s Caribana complete with its history and events. Look to see these pages become longer and longer over the next year. Then there is an advice column, SexFiles with Katya. Don’t let the title throw you off this is a tasteful discussion forum mainly for young people, and is quite supportive for those who have little elsewhere to turn to for personal information. In this world of constant information overflow, fetenet.com is still the new kid on the block, but already, I think, the one of the best that Toronto has to offer to the Caribbean community. Certainly it still has some ways to go in filling out its ambitious mandate, but knowing Andrew and Ivan as I have over the past few years, theirs is a dedicated input, and they will do justice to us as a community whether we party hard or work hard. Or both.