Almost seven years ago I wrote a web application so I could play chess against friends around the country. I invited a handful of them to join in the games, and they told their friends about it, who in turn told their friends… et cetera.
Now, all these years later, there have been more than 6,000 games played and hundreds of users. I haven’t touched the programming in years, but apparently it’s still good enough that people enjoy it. It’s not “Web 2.0” and doesn’t have any flashy effects, and in fact it looks pretty bad (since I’m no designer). But chess is chess, I suppose, and that crowd doesn’t care as much about aesthetics.
Anyway, there’s a comment system where people can drop a note for everyone to see. I get about one comment every year or so, and just received a fun one yesterday:
Rock on, Spencer George.