Chess.com is an online chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 community with over 4 million members as of October 2011. Chess.com has free chess play (in several different forms) and contains a range of activities for its users, including tournaments, articles, videos, and social tools. Its slogan

Slogan

A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a political, commercial, religious and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose. The word slogan is derived from slogorn which was an Anglicisation of the Scottish Gaelic sluagh-ghairm . Slogans vary from the written and the...

 'Play, Learn, Share' reflects its aim to provide users with an 'enjoyable environment where chess players of all skill levels can learn, contribute, play, build, chat, and share.'

History

Chess.com was originally owned by Aficionado, Inc., the makers of the software Chess Mentor. It later changed hands and was re-launched in May 2007 by its founders There are more than 20 staff members who program, do customer service, and manage content. There are an additional 20+ paid contributors doing articles, videos, and online chess courses. While the site centers around playing online chess, it was also designed as a place for users to learn and share, which is emulated by the site's slogan. The site has strict rules against using chess software in any Chess.com chess games.

Development

Various design enterprises

Business

A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

 were employed to construct the foundations of the site, such as Prototype JavaScript Framework

Prototype Javascript Framework

The Prototype JavaScript Framework is a JavaScript framework created by Sam Stephenson in February 2005 as part of the foundation for Ajax support in Ruby on Rails. It is implemented as a single file of JavaScript code, usually named prototype.js...

 (to ease development of dynamic web applications), TinyMCE

TinyMCE

TinyMCE, also known as the Tiny Moxiecode Content Editor, is a platform-independent web-based JavaScript/HTML WYSIWYG editor control, released as open source software under the LGPL by Moxiecode Systems AB. It has the ability to convert HTML textarea fields or other HTML elements to editor instances...

 and Qcodo

Qcodo

The Qcodo Development Framework is an open-source PHP web application framework which builds an Object Relational Model , CRUD UI pages, and AJAX hooks from an existing data model. It additionally includes a tightly-integrated HTML and JavaScript form toolkit which interfaces directly with the...

. Funding for projects and the development of the site comes from advertisements and paid memberships.. However, taking part in discussions, posting comments, and being a greeter are all considered beneficial to the site's reputation. To recognize a player's contributions, players have a user profile where all activities are listed, and member points are rewarded to value these activities. The website is divided into the following sections:

1. Play: The play section implements six ways to play chess- turn-based, live, tournament, vote, against the computer, and mobile chess. There are apps for Chess.com on Facebook and iGoogle. Basic members can use all of these. Live chess had been a beta feature until recently, as the servers are now considerably more stable. Turn-based chess offers both standard and Chess 960 games.
2. Learn: Various tools are available in the learn section, which encourages players to improve their chess. The majority of the tools offer a free trial, but are generally not accessible by basic members. These include video lessons, Chess Mentor, a game explorer, book openings, tactics trainer, a daily puzzle, and a computer workout.
3. Read: Articles, news and personal blogs are posted in the read section. Columns are also posted weekly by several different grandmasters, and there is a chess encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
4. Forums: This section houses the Chess.com forums.
5. Resources: This section includes an analysis board, downloadable items, Chess.com gear, classified ads, a site map, a welcome video, books & equipment, a browser toolbar (powered by Conduit), and widgets & badges.
6. Members: This section lets users search for members & titled players, invite friends, look at photos, buy a membership, or look at a country list & an interactive map.
7. Groups: Users can choose to join a public group, a private group, or a team. These teams can compete with other teams in regular and vote chess matches.
8. Local: This section allows users to search for local tournaments, coaches, and clubs. There are maps for locating them.
9. Fun: The 'fun' section is available to all users. It includes Chess.com TV, an endless quiz, trophies, free videos, surveys, chess quotes, fun articles, and a Chess.com podcast.