Two Things I Know Nothing About
July 9th, 2008
No… it’s not tennis (though I guess that makes three things I know nothing about… next I’ll have to blog about spatial relationships). Today I’m on:
Hip-Hop and Chess.
But here they are, together at last. Apparently RZA (that’s a name, I guess) of Wu Tang Clan is a big chess fan, so they are in the process of launching WuChess… “the world’s first online chess and Hip-Hop community.” You can create a profile, play live online chess games, chat about Wu Tang… apparently this subscription based site ($48/year) already has 5,000 people pre-registered (early joiners get a special founders t-shirt). Personally, I’ll be interested to see how the activity in this community distributes itself - mostly chess, mostly hip-hop… who knows? But the fact is, it seems like people can choose the way they want to interact with the site. AND, the organization even has a higher purpose attached. Hundreds of kids will be given free access to playing online chess, and 10-20% of the revenue earned by the site will provide academic scholarships from… wait for it… The Hip-Hop Chess Federation.
In this Web 2.0 world, with social networking sites seeming to outnumber actual people, it certainly seems that Wu Tang has found a way to provide a unique value and experience. There is certainly a reason to sign on with this community in contrast to any of the other ones out there. While I doubt you’ll find me castling my king with the rest of the Wu Tang community (com-wu-nity? sorry.), I do think it’s worth taking note. Specific, true to the people who started it, clearly keying into some existing passion, finding a higher purpose along the way… if they can manage to deliver on the experience and authenticity that music fans (and I would argue, chess fans) expect, this may really be something to watch.
Other posts by Jennifer.
The Nichepreneur Coach » Blog Archive » Combining Passions for Profit: A Nichepreneur’s Example says:
[...] to this Brains on Fire blog post WuChess already has 5,000 users — who pay $48/year to belong to the site. Talk about merging [...]
July 9th, 2008 at 8:32 amSimon Crowe says:
It’s pronounced “rizz-uh” (I’m pretty sure). He’s pretty well thought of as a film composer (”Ghost Dog”) and even does some acting.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:43 am