The RZA launches WuChess.com

by Angela

June 2, 2008

Prior to today I hadn’t heard of WuChess.com, big thanks to TiffanyBrown for putting me on to the site. Straight from the about page:

Chesspark and the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA have partnered up to bring you WuChess.com.

Designed for chess enthusiasts addicted to hip-hop music, WuChess.com is the place where your favorite music, movies and celebs will be all while you get your game on. WuChess members will get exclusive offers such as MP3s you can’t get anywhere else, playing a surprise celebrity guest, access to one of a kind video clips and many more surprises. This is hardcore chess with half the stuffiness.

WuChess understands that it is important that today’s youth develop life strategy skills, so to help their efforts a portion of WuChess revenue will be donated to the Hip Hop Chess Federation’s scholarship fund.

While Hip-Hop is one of my favorite genres of music I am not a chess player, in fact I have never played in my life. However this site has gotten me interested in just how small or large this particular niche really is. The site offers social networking and the ability to play chess with others so user engagement is probably high for those who do visit the site. The site is still young so it is hard to tell how successful it will be and if the lure of playing chess with surprise celebrities will be enough to draw this select group of individuals. Here is how the site is doing so far:

I guess the best question to ask is how many Blacks play Chess online? Even better would be how many Blacks play Chess online compared to other board and card games? BlackAmericaWeb actually has a whole game channel though Chess is missing from its line-up. $48/year may also be a bit much considering most social networks are free these days outside of dating sites. I doubt many people will pay to connect with like minded Chess players. Scratch that, hard core WuTang fans will probably shell out the 48 bucks but not sure about many more people than that.

Category: Celeb 2.0, Launches, News, Social Networking, Startups, Trends, web 2.0 | Tags: Chess, hip-hop chess, online gaming, RZA, social network, wuchess, Wutang Clan

J. Lee

I like chess... I dig (or at least, used to dig) WuTang... I often wish more of my peers played chess... It's not likely that I'll pay $48 to play on wuchess. I think is a decent concept... engaging the black/urban community in a social gaming site, but I don't think this is a business by itself. I think they would see significantly more success if they partnered with an established black/urban portal, abandoned the subscription model and went with an ad-supported based business model.

Andrea

That's hot (and I am someone who "don't do hip-hip" or support it).

It's inventive but like the previous comment above noted, $48 is a bit for his audience. They spend on themselves --- in tangibles. I can't see them putting out that much eventhough it is fairly a small amount.

I also adore the conceptual component of adding the challenge of playing chess. It's academic. It is something our people need in learning how to show up to play and come back and be challenged by others.

Whomever this Wu-tang rapper guy is, I think he is smart. I wish him the best of luck. He is doing the for-profit social enterprise business model of making profit while doing something good that benefits others. By using the gaming end of technology but applying it with an academic sport such as chess, he is sliding in academic, skill building, and social strategy to the mix which the hip-hop demographic really needs. Hell, the entire Black Community needs those work-outs.