World Championship Social Media

Let's get back to The Sociology of Chess, and specifically World Championship Sociology. Many chess players might not remember a time when a World Chess Championship had no related web site, like nyc2016.fide.com for the recently concluded Carlsen - Karjakin match, but most can remember when there was no related social media. One of the first articles to appear on Worldchess.com, the host domain for the nyc2016 site, was Chess Players Are Surprisingly Bad With Social Media (October 2015):-

Most everyone agrees that chess is ideally suited for the Internet. But, when it comes to one of the most powerful and omnipresent uses of the Internet -- social media -- some chess players, even elite ones, have been slow to adapt.

That observation doesn't apply to Worldchess itself, which promotes three social media services on every one of its own pages:-

• Facebook - World Chess
• Twitter - World Chess
• Instagram - World Chess

Following is a sample from that last service, which captures key moments from the match.

instagram.com/theworldchess

Add to the Worldchess list a service for the many excellent videos produced by the group:-

• Youtube - World Chess

As most keen observers of chess know by now, Agon Limited was both the organizer of the match and the owner of the Worldchess site. It tried to establish a monopoly over the transmission of the moves of the match (see my posts from another blog, World Championship Broadcasting and World Championship Bullying, for background) but was stopped at the last moment by a Manhattan court. Worldchess also doesn't have a monopoly on chess in the social media. Two popular Twitter hashtags for the match were

• #worldchess2016, and
• #CarlsenKarjakin

both of which tracked match progress through GM Carlsen's ultimate victory. While I was preparing this post, I discovered Seven Reasons Why Social Media Is a Chess Game (globalsevenagency.com):-

1. Sometimes you WIN, sometimes you LOSE
2. Practice makes PERFECT
3. It’s not always YOUR move
etc. etc.

With social media, everyone wins and it's always your move.