And now, here in the quiet holiday month of August, courtesy of Chessvine - along comes just such a competition, uniquely for chess writers on the internet.
And of course, almost anyone can write about chess on the internet, so almost anyone can enter!The details? September the first is the deadline, you must submit your entry via a blog, and the prizes are three accounts on the website organizing the competition. And it doesn't matter if you don't have a blog already, because setting one up is almost as easy as clicking here.
Good luck and get scribbling! I mean, typing . . .
14 comments:
Meanwhile, more advanced forms of technology - I'm trying to follow the top five boards at Liverpool, but all I'm getting on my screen is a load of incoherent garbage.
(Yes, I don't mean the chess, ho ho.)
Same here. Boards 6-11 OK though.
"almost anyone can write about chess on the internet"
Well the S&BCC blog is proof of that
OK,
so am I right in understanding that the prize for winning this competition is that you get to contribute to chessvine for free and they'll link to your blog?
Am I missing something here?
That sounds a little like the Page Three competition in the Sun that Tim Spanton is credited with setting up.
I get the imperssion that the consensus is that the prize doesn't justify entering the competition . . .
the prize is a bit modest ... unless you're an experienced blogger in need of technorati authority links to help popularize an existing blog.
From a single website link crawled by technorati (Susan Polgar's doing) my blog jumped from 4 million+ position to 2 million+ ... that's an important factor in the contest prize (because you're able to link to any blog of your choosing when you post for chessvine) but if you don't know that information you'll pass it up without a second thought.
I personally support it because I think that to celebrate, promote and encourage chess writing on the web is a good thing.
It had never been tried before so naturally I jumped right in. ;)
a cash prize fund would have been nice ... but until chessvine finds a millionaire benefactor we do what we can.
"I get the imperssion that the consensus is that the prize doesn't justify entering the competition . . ."
Well, I wouldn't say that necessarily ... more that the prize giver gains as much if not more than the prize receiver.
As for the technorati I can't say that bothers me too much. In terms of gaining popularity we seem to be doing OK without trying.
PS: That Spanton. He's some genius isn't he?
I'm surprised one of the big boys doesn't run this kind of competition regularly, like New In Chess or Chessbase. They could give away something minor for them (book, piece of software) and in return receive 100 of email addresses for them to send advertising to and generate links and love in the chess blogosphere at large.
It had never been tried before so naturally I jumped right in.
Well that's true ... normally people just steal our stuff rather than ask for it.
I must confess I did not expect such hostility. It's true that for large blogs like the Streatham&Brixton one (with a loyal readership) the chessvine contest holds no flavor ... but things are different for the struggling blogger.
He'll welcome the help and reap the reward from chessvine's efforts. In fact, chessvine welcomes any recommendation for advancing chess blogging.
The competition had an interesting outcome...
Post a Comment