In the past few months I have noticed something about Chessbase. The free news service appears from my point of view to be going through the motions.

It started right around the time Anna Zatonskih had her underwater adventure (for those of you that weren't with us back then that was August of 2008). The press releases and even the fillers were filled with all kinds of content and Chessbase was looking really cool and attracting more attention than usual (because it jumped on several important news stories in that period of time and chessvine among others were linking to it like crazy).

Here's the big question. What's different now?

1. Seldom do we see an embedded video that isn't candid ... which can be a good thing until you're sick of it.

2. The pictures have little uniformity, there are many articles that throw in tons of pictures with different color schemes (with the exception of tournament hall photos ... bravo!)

3. The articles are overrun with information and data ... loosen up and have a little fun ... separate from the 'establishment' image. I think that articles on the Chessbase employees having fun or playing chess is a great start!

4. Overhaul the site visually, Chessbase has become stale from using the same formula to create their posts that I've seen since I've been a hardcore viewer ... change it up, maybe add some blue to all that red color scheme.

I don't think Chessbase is going to be non-existant any time soon simply because they have little or no corporate threats. But the share of readers will become divided among the smaller blogs the longer the staleness persists.

NOTE: I'd be happy to be a visual appeal consultant for awhile if Chessbase is interested.