Chessvine.com - Site News

Chessvine Isn't On The Kenilworthian Blog List

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:38:02 -0500

I was a bit offended that my buddies over at the Kenilworthian didn't list me on their chess blogs list. But with the chess blogging community growing it's becoming that much harder to keep us all together isn't it?

I remember when chess blogging had only a select few hardcore bloggers. We've lost a number of those old veterans but in their place we have dozens more now! It's a good time to be a chess blogger and we're gaining momentum.

Sick Day

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:31:36 -0500

I am still feeling under the weather (this is day four or five) and I'm taking this one totally off! I posted my illness on my facebook status and a friend sent me the following song:

Why Is Chessvine.com Not Covering Linares?!?

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:54:24 -0500

Because our friends over at < a href="http://www.chessdom.com/">Chessdom.com already are more than adequately ... live coverage, round recaps, etc.

Shameless Self Promotion

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:35:37 -0500

Check me out in all these cool places:

Facebook

Myspace

Twitter

Happy Valentine's Day 2010!!!

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 07:44:00 -0500

New Years Resolution

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 10:04:58 -0500

Recently Alexandra Kosteniuk asked her Facebook friends what their chess related new year resolutions were. I answered pretty modestly ... I want to be known in "real life" with the same amount of celebrity that I enjoy on the internet.

How do I plan on accomplishing that goal? By offering to my readers a great resource. I want to get involved in your public life, I want to help out with your chess projects. I want to write articles about what you're doing. I want to give live updates to my 9000+ Twitter Followers about how a event you're running is going. I want to be hands-on involved in chess. Give me something to do!

Contest Sponsors

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:19:57 -0500

Recently, some of you have been contacting me about services and products that you offer. I'm currently looking for contest sponsors for a future Chessvine.com major contest giveaway. If you have any products or services you would like to donate or advertise then by all means contact me! I can be reached via e-mail (colonel_crockett@yahoo.com) or through Facebook. Your product does not have to be chess related but please put "Chessvine" in the subject line.

Anton Taylor Is Now A Member Of the Chess Journalists of America

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:56:06 -0500

Anton Taylor (also known as ColonelCrockett from here at Chessvine.com) has finally become a member of the Chess Journalists of America. It was a long time coming and I received a kind note from Alexandra Kosteniuk congratulating me ... which was an incredibly nice touch.

Check me out on the member list!

Our 600th Blog Post!

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:42:02 -0500

We're all dancin' around here to celebrate!

If You Haven't Guessed

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:01:58 -0400

The St. Louis Chess Center (or perhaps more accurately, Slay Media) has graciously offered to once again publish live coverage from the Women's US Championship to Chessvine.com. To be honest I've enjoyed my little break for this week and I look forward to the continued pseudo-partnership between Chessvine.com and Slay Media.

Thanks for the patronage,
Anton Taylor
(ColonelCrockett, Senior Admin, Chessvine.com)

Smallest Of Requests

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 06:05:00 -0400

If you don't mind getting e-mails just about every day about chess news from around the world and the occassional random blog post then feel free to subscribe to my Feedburner e-mail subscription list.

Rest Day

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 10:06:47 -0400

Take a Rest Day ... That's what I'm doing.

My Twitter & Feedburner Stats Fixed!

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:34:20 -0400

Well, people ... it's quite a major update to the site I have to tell you about. My stats for the site (over on the sidebar under "rankings") have now been updating and are being automatically maintained now.

Let's compare:

Name - Old Stat - Updated Stat
Feedburner Subscribers - 15 - 180+
Twitter Followers - 1700+ - 6500+

That's quite a bit of difference!

Blog Site News

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 07:52:29 -0400

There are a number of new items to add to the "I'm working on the blog" list.

1) I'm contemplating giving the blog a new template. The current one looks fairly professional but there a few unappealing bugs in the system that I'd like to see cured. The simplest solution is to change the template.

2) I'm going to be updating my sidebar. For some reason my blog subscriber counts have remained monstrously low when they're displayed on the sidebar while the numbers have actually skyrocketed. I'm going to revamp the widgets and see if I can't have a more accurate representation of my 1000s of followers from various online services.

3) updating the social media networks. The facebook groups are still growing but the pace has become a trickle and I'm going to fix that through aggressive expansion. Likewise, the chessvine network that I began on LinkedIn for professionals needs to be revamped and relaunched with more publicity.

4) Backroom business deals are still currently being made to get this blog generating some real money for my personal gain. The blog is getting enough traffic to monetize but I just haven't made the real effort. It's now been one year of full-time operation and the business plan is working ... I just have to mine the gold to create a cash flow form the personal branding I've been doing.

5) Last but not least: As part of the back room deals I'm looking for vendors willing to donate products and services to consumers as advertising. In other words, I'm actively seeking stuff to give away as contest prizes. Free stuff is a big part of the 5-10 year business model for this blog and it's going to happen.

Happy Independence Day

nospam@example.com (ColonelCrockett) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:27:52 -0400