Chesspark:Play Chess with your Friends
Some of you may remember the Green Witch Internet Radio, a legal, free music, no ads, open source startup which we ran from October 31st 1998 until our acquisition in January of 2000. Some of you may also remember Jack Moffitt, who at Green Witch was lead developer of the Icecast Open Source Streaming Media Server as well as head of the Xiph Foundation, creators of Vorbis, FLAC, and Theora, along with Icecast.
After getting fed up with the music industry, Jack drifted back to school, formed a band Lousy Robot , got back into Chess, and joined the board of the Jabber Foundation where he learned all about the leading Open Source Instant Messaging Protocol. He realized that the existing options for playing Chess Online were relatively weak. And since playing a game is a social activity, very much based around communicating, he thought “why not build a great chat client (with full web integration) an combine Chess into it?” Millions of people play Chess. Millions of people use Instant Messaging. They’re two great tastes that go greater together
Thus, Jack Moffitt (with lots of help from Patrick Mahoney also formerly of The Green Witch, and about a half dozen fantastic developers) has developed Chesspark.com (part of the Online Gaming Group, LLC.) I’m a Strategic Advisor, but most importantly, we now have a way to play tons of Chess and call it work. 
No, wait, Chessplayers across America will now be able to play web based Chess without having to install a special program on their company’s (or Cybercafe’s) computers. No, wait, since it’s just starting out, your boss probably isn’t on Chesspark yet to see if you’re on it also. And even if you are, you’re just doing research! Actually, it’s a great place to get a good game of chess, whether against a human, any of several bots, or to build your mating skills using Robotrainer. The Pawn Star shirts should be showing up any day. There are a whole bunch of tools and innovations coming along which will be indispensable to the GM, and others which will be welcoming to even the most beginning of players. Tournaments and League Play should be starting some time in the coming year, as well as a website which will be upgraded to match the quality of the application. In any case, pop on in, check it out, and I’d be happy to play a game of Blitz Chess against anyone. And if you’re ever south of Miami, check out the US Chess Hall of Fame built by and named after my wife’s father Sidney Samole in one of the most incredible marketing moves of all time. You can’t miss it, it’s the giant chessboard shaped building with a huge Rook entrance along the Florida Turnpike. Stop in and say hi to Shoshana’s mom Sharon, she’s usually there running the gift shop.
Hope to see you at Chesspark.com, named after the location in every city where folks congregate to play.