Web 2.0, Synergy and all Those Buzzwords

“So how’s your blog going?”

I was talking last night with Mike, the tech support guy who taught me how to use WordPress, the blogging tool. We were at a Small Business Fair organized by Cruzio (my ISP, where Mike works) where various speakers including my wife, Kay, were talking about how to use “Web 2.0” to support your business.

I told Mike about the feeling of talking in an empty room, which is common to bloggers who are just starting out, but I also told him that I had already gotten some readers and a few comments. As the folks as Cruzio told us, the comments are really what a blog is all about. “Web 1.0” was all about putting information out there to be consumed. “Web 2.0” is about building communities. So thanks to all of you who have read or commented so far! You’re helping to build a worldwide chess community.

I also told Mike that one of my goals was to achieve some synergy between my ChessLectures and my blog. That sounded like a nice impressive answer to me. “Synergy” is a good business-y word, right? What I meant was that I’d like people to listen to my ChessLectures and come here to my blog and talk about them, or give me new ideas. And I’d like people who read the blog to visit www.chesslecture.com and listen to the lectures. Presto! Synergy!

Of course, ChessLecture already has a feedback tool, as many of you have discovered. But that’s not quite the same as a community. So if you’d like to chat about ChessLecture, not just with me but also with each other, I hope that this will be a place that you can come to.