Diamond Members: Don't Miss Out!

If you haven't taken the opportunity to give your preferences about chess.com videos, here is your last chance:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/25L5PMQ

We currently have 44 responses. Once it gets to 50 I'll be sending the results to staff. 

I think you should hold off until you get 5000 responses. 50 out of 10,000,000 doesn't seem very important.

Do you know that anyone can complete your survey, regardless of their membership status?  Is there a risk this may invalidate any results you might get?

Finally, what in the world prompted you to do this?  I imagine that there is some type of video you don't like.  Why don't you just say it?

I find the title of your topic missleading... Please change it.

That's actually a good idea tiger.  A skype class with 10 students or so, 10/hour each

I am new to the site. Sorry I am posting here, but I am in need of posting a topic. I have a very old chess set and could use some help identifying it. How do I create a new topic?

Heres some of the pieces. I have more pictures once I find out how to start a new thread. It's been in the family awhile and is said to be VERY valuable.

You make a fair point about the sample size, but I don't have realistic expectations of having enough power to run statistical analyses (and I'd have to address many other methodological issues if this were a serious study). In any case, the results are showing some consistent trends. Plus, chess.com doesn't have 10 million diamond members (the people who have access to the videos). As of today, chess.com has just under 1.7 million blitz players (and I'm not sure how many of them are really active), but only a fraction of those (and I'm guessing a relatively small fraction) are diamond members. The target population is still large of course, but statistical significance isn't the goal here--it's just to organize some comments from people who want to share them. Limitations considered, the information is still useful. 

I included a question in the survey about membership status. So far it looks like only a couple people answered the survey who do not have full access to the videos, but their responses are still valid because they can watch the samples and therefore know what content they like and don't like (almost all respondents have access though). And of course, people could give false responses--always a risk in online surveys--but that usually isn't such a big concern.  

I have left comments on some of the video pages.  I'm not hiding anything. I almost always leave praise when I comment on a video, and I enjoy many of them, but over the past few weeks I've noticed a lot of highlights videos, chess TV videos, and now Throwback Thursdays (recycling old videos). The highlights do include some instruction, but it's not organized into a lesson with a theme. These three types of videos, which are generally disliked in the survey results so far, have made up almost 50% of videos in the past several weeks. I think they are just busy getting the new live server together, but still, we are paying for the videos as diamond members.

In any case, I did the survey because I wanted to see what others think--not just assuming that my opinion represents others. So far though, the results are pretty consistent, so even 50 responses will be enough to show some rough trends.  Call it a pilot survey. :)

You probably find it misleading because you aren't a diamond member. People who pay the highest price are usually interested in the videos because it's one of the perks of that level of membership. A lot of people leave comments on the video threads, so this is an opportunity to share the comments in an organized way. The title of the post is intentionally catchy of course, but I don't think it's misleading at all. It is specifically labeled for diamond members. 

@yankees39 You will probably receive some replies if you start your own thread. Click on whatever forum you want to post in, then look for the green button at the top right of the screen that says Post New Forum Topic. Good luck. 

I have posted this in the last text field in the survey, yet to be repeated (with some editorial improvements) here:

To be blunt: Instructions and teaching in English should require that the instructor or teacher has good English pronounciation. For me having English as a second language (yet with an Australian mom and a wife who doesn't speak my home country's tongue well, hence our conversation is in English on a daily basis), I am not sure whether this is a problem to viewers who have English as their native language - but it sure is a huge problem for me to focus on the theory sought to be presented in the video, when I have to focus on the words the teacher is trying to pronounce. I have had great outcome of American master players' videos, but very little from the Eastern Europeans and others with poor English.

In this regard, ChessBase videos are no better, by the way.

From what I can see, the discussion thus far seems to assume that chess.com is making shorter videos because it is what people want. At first glance, this is what any user looking at the current situation should infer, since it's not clear there is a more plausible explanation. By this reasoning, it must be that chess.com thinks its users do not watch anything longer than fifteen minutes, and so in order to remain competitive with other video annotation producers on the internet, it is keeping the videos to that length.

However, I think it is more than that. I think chess.com is trying to make a promise to its users about the length of videos, not simply in order to get views, but to get subscriptions. Not everyone purchases diamond membership, so for those people who do not get unlimited content, there is some uncertainty as to what they are buying if they are restricted to X videos a day. Keeping the videos a consistent length makes it clear to prospective subscribers exactly what it is they are getting. I suspect some people don't like the way the videos are edited to squeeze every last bit of content into each video, but it's a way for chess.com to say to its users: "Hey, if you buy limited content, we want to make sure every click you make will give you as much as possible."

If this is the case, I think it's a savvy way to broaden its subscriber base, not asking everyone to buy diamond membership. Just my two cents.

I think chess.com understands something about how video viewership works, which is borne out by their responsiveness to viewer input. People don't necessarily watch content because they want to learn something new about chess, but to have an affective relationship with the video content producer. There are many ways for video content producers and viewers to engage in various direct and indirect signaling, and I think, by and large, chess.com is quite successful at this.

Often when I've viewed videos, I've found a skilled chess player but one who lacks professional communication skills. For these reasons, I would rather do chess tactics or read a chess book.

Thanks!

cheech1981 wrote:

@yankees39 You will probably receive some replies if you start your own thread. Click on whatever forum you want to post in, then look for the green button at the top right of the screen that says Post New Forum Topic. Good luck. 

 Go here yankee39; http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/need-help-identifying-please