Finishing off our week of niche social networks comes a newish social networking offering from chess portal Chess.com.
Chess.com is dedicated to becoming the premier online social networking community for chess players world wide. Chess.com aims to provide an environment where chess players of all skill levels can learn, contribute, play, build, chat, and share.
Chess.com comes with the standard array of features including profiles, blogs, friends, events, video sharing and email. The social network launched in June and is on its way to 10,000 members.
Catering for a niche audience doesn’t necessarily require aesthetic beauty (although admittedly it does help), content and community ultimately drives success. As much as some of the members of Chess.com make Chris Pirillo look like Brad Pitt, there’s little doubt that the site has something to it, besides a url that could potentially be worth $1million by itself. If you’re heavily into chess, Chess.com is worth a visit.
I have already joined the site.
Have been a chess-lover from twelve years old. I love the site. It’s a bit slow though.
YASNS (Yet another Social Networking Site). Yawn. No slam on chess.com, but when are we going to see some real web innovation? So far I see a rehash of the same stuff over-n-over. Worse is that TechCrunch gives them coverage – I’d love to see more obscure innovative startups get coverage. Just IMHO.
Don’t do this. It’s waste of time…
If you spending more playing online chess. You won’t able to get your startup job done. Your goal is to create, compete, finish, market your idea to the world. So, corporation will buy your ideas. This is great feeling. You can get to meet corporate investors(pawn), executives(knights), and CEO(King)
Don’t someone kill your startup hobby. Just do your work. It’s great site. Don’t do it. People! Duncan is trying to drug you all.
Checkmate.
Social networks just need to innovate. There are a few critical flaws that I see with most, if not all, social networks; that is, I can’t connect with my friend unless he resides at the service. If I know him, shouldn’t I be able to express that relationship?
Along the same lines, I really like XFN and the ability to build relationships between interaction. Perhaps not true relationships, but it definitely helps to show how networks move and change shape across the internet.
A couple of months ago we (GarageGames.com) started the Great Games Experiment, a social network for gamers and game developers. It’s growing nicely and people in the gaming community seem to like it. The coolest thing is how game developers and game players can dialogue and argue and get the benefits of each others’ POV. Doesn’t have the super ultra mega dork power as Chess but I…OK. It’s even dorkier…
There are so many niche social network sites now, are they going to become like blogs- where there is a social site for just about everything? Or will the net change before that happens…
I don’t know. For me, there are only so many hours in the day. How many social networks do I need? I think only those that really give you something you can’t easily get elsewhere are going to thrive AND I think there’s something I haven’t heard anyone else talk about yet: To succeed, a social network has to have a large core of users for whom that network is their number one online place of expression.
Curt;
While there does need to be a level of expression, I think the analytical aspect hasn’t really been exploited. With the number of people interested statistics (i.e. Alexa, Compete, etc), I could see people being interested in seeing who they are linking with.
I don’t think it’s 100% about expression and posting lame songs.
Do we all remember the “Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace” essay a few weeks ago?
I wonder if there may be a divide here..
Chandra, I have to agree with you. A lot of these sites are just rehash with the same basic structure. However if I was really into Chess I suppose I would be singing a different tune…
actually they miss something important like … good chess playboard. This board requires java, doesnt show when your king is under fire and doesnt list all the moves. Plus site speed is average.
It opens up some interesting possiblities though. Quick online chess play with a Master? interviews?
Very Good idea, I used to organise some match with Karpov and Kasparov and I will go and test this networking portal right away. Armand Rousso.
I like the concept. What intrigues me most however, is how that group got ahold of that domain name. If they are able to execute their business plan, the name chess.com could add millions to their future valuation.
Good point about the domain. This name wasn’t easy to come by. So what’s even more intriguing is – who’s behind this startup?
The site doesn’t reveal and WHOIS only shows this…
CHESS.COM, LLC
PO Box 60400
Palo Alto, California 94306
United States
I see a lot of people don’t really understand the concept of the long tail here. The internet is about people buying/using/reading/blogging/socializing with less of more.
No, a site about chess is not exciting to me, but I understand that there is a small group of dedicated people out there who really love chess, and to them this could be incredible. For anyone selling chess related products this will be a great way to target their customers.
The great move in marketing is away from demographic segmentation towards behavioral segmentation. The growth of millions of niche social networking sites will facilitate marketers being able to better find their customer.
#Matt Jones – Yes, I believe the net will continue to fracture just like blogs. There will be a few huge social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace?, other?) but the majority will be smaller more specific ones with far fewer participants.
Will this site make it? i don’t know. I hardly care enough about chess to even look at the site, but lucky for them I am not their target demographic.
And lucky for the rest of us that you can still make a nice profit even if you only capture a small niche market as an audience.
Founder is a recent Stanford GSB graduate… Perhaps MBAs aren’t so useless after all…
It’s a great fit for the social networking space with absolutely the best name money can buy…
They should do very well….
Whoah! I didn’t expect to get picked up on TechCrunch!
I am the owner of Chess.com
Yes, recent Stanford MBA graduate (3 weeks ago!). Feel free to ask me any questions here, or email me at chesscom[at]gmail.
By the way, a new feature is launching today – the ability to play chess asynchronously with your friends online. You make a move, they get an email that tells them you have moved, they login and move, etc.
I’m still in shock…
Chess.com needs to partner with Chess Now, the public access television show that even counts Howard Stern and his buddies as viewers, even if for all the wrong reasons.
http://www.yout...m/user/ChessNow
I’m not so sure this is a niche play. There are approximately 500MM chess players worldwide……you do the math. How the heck did they get the chess.com domain name? Erik, please enlighten us!
Actually, the first Chess Social Network to have launched was Chess Cube (http://www.chesscube.com) in South Africa, about 3 months ago. They are busy improving their systems by testing it here, before they open it up to the broader Internet
Sounds like a nice place for chess addicts, but more of a possible feature to add to the facebook platform (asynch game play, that is).
The company that owned the chess.com domain name went into public bankruptcy auction at the end of 2005. I knew about it because I knew the former owners. Before Chess.com I started and operated http://www.WholesaleChess.com – the largest online chess store, which I sold right before starting at Stanford. Right place right time I guess…
Full disclosure Erik and I are friends. I just blogged on Chess.com here:
http://www.dail...com-social.html
For what its worth, I haven’t spent much time on Chess.com but I’m excited for Erik. This is a niche social community with very specific needs around chess play and tutorial – and as such I think it will deliver value to chess enthusiasts that they can’t find through other networks. And chess is a particularly powerful niche community for an online social network, because the activity itself can be engaged in while online.
More on that. I might love windsurfing, and therefore have a reason to congregate with other windsurfers online, but since my primary activity occurs on the waves, I can only engage in the act of communion around the activity online, not the activity itself. I can’t windsurf while online. With chess, though, I can play while online — in fact, my experience might be enhanced because I can find people to play against.
So having the dominant chess social network could be a very valuable community. Kudos to Erik for landing an awesome domain name, he’s already #3 when you google chess. I think he will do very well with this community and with integrated shopping, advertising, and lead generation, he will build this into a nice business.
Erik: you need to partner with Chess Now. If you can get Cindy from Episode 2 back on the show, you don’t know how happy you will make the chess world (and Howard Stern fans).
For additional background on the Chess community, try reading “The Kings of New York”, by Michael Weinreb http://www.amaz...9236&sr=8-1 (I read an advanced uncorrected proof, doubtful the final book is too different).
A couple of things of interest from this book — online chess is nothing new, http://www.chessbase.com, http://www.chessclub.com (30K members, been doing it for a long time), http://www.chessgames.com (ditto). That this site has the press buzz, this week, doesn’t mean someone hasn’t been there and done that.
Perhaps smart money would roll these up if they thought the market big enough. What’s telling is that many of the up and coming chess players are pursuing online poker rather than chess, since the money is there — the power of the ‘everyman’ being able to enter perhaps — and being able to win, easier.
Another website if you are really interested in Chess and solutions is ChessProblems.com started by a friend who is really into Chess. He also has a similar site for thos of you who also play GO … GoProblems.com
chess.com may not have been first to market, but I’d put my money on them. checkmate!
I hope this new Stanford MBA grad makes it bigtime! The idea is great. Even I (a complete novice) would be interested in the new asychronous play
feature. The poker trend is exactly that: a trend, but chess is, well, forever!
Ha! Oh man, they finally made it here. But TCG already covered this: http://closetgr...eta-launch.html
And, you know, Mike – what do you reckon about these guys who talk of web 3.0? See: http://blogs.br...mer-of-the-vine
- TCG
Chess.com is great.. Checking out the latest puzzle and reading up on people’s interesting games. Perfect place to go for your 1 hour a day Chess inoculation.
Nice domain name Erik!
Over at Chesspark.com, we’re up to thousands of games per day, and over 100,000 users (increasing by over 1,000 per day), and are soon to officially launch the next iteration of our software.
Let’s get together and talk Internet Chess biz sometime.
Time to shake up the Chessplaying world!
All the best.
I don’t know a damn thing about chess.
“Castle takes tall nipple. Your move.”
Thanks for the post! I’ll be checking it out shortly, I love chess! I hope it’ll allow me to spend some time every day without pulling me away for hours, as chess tends to do…
So, since this article was written, Chess.com has added a HUGE # of features, so might be worth checking it out one more time.