We've come a really long way since this first-year anniversary, pictured above.
I am beyond excited and proud that on July 23, DKPittsburghSports.com will turn five years old. Five amazing, painful, exhilarating, wouldn’t-trade-them-for-anything years.
And of course, there could be nobody better to celebrate with than you, who made it all possible. Our staff invites you to join us at our office at Highmark Stadium, on Tuesday, July 23 at 6 p.m. Here is the Facebook event Taylor Haase made for us.
I can't wait o see some of you again, and meet new faces. It blows my mind how many amazing people I have met in the past five years. Different people from all walks of life, from all over the world, all brought together by the intense passion for Pittsburgh sports. A bond that took me many years to understand. If you aren't born in Pittsburgh, it just makes no sense. It made no sense why the entire season-ticket Row A, Section 216 of Three Rivers Stadium, felt like my family. Man, I still miss “the Heckler.” (A mailman in Bloomfield who really earned that name every night.)
So rather than decide ourselves how to spend this very special evening, let’s do what we always do and ask for your input: How would you like to celebrate?
Let me know in comments, and I will do my best to make it happen.
MORE EYEBALLS
As we approach that fifth anniversary, it'd be nice to think most sports fans in the market have heard of us. But it's also cautionary to think they might have. Because, at some point, they'd likely have decided whether or not to subscribe ... sight unseen.
Or, uh, site unseen.
Because we spent the better part of our existence behind a rock-solid wall, we'd need word of mouth or small samples to show what was going on in here. But now, with two recent initiatives --the 99-cent one-month trial and, just in the past month, free straight news content -- we're hoping more new people will at least get a peek and want more.
So far, it's really worked:
• For this month, June 2019, Google Analytics has tracked 240,739 users as having visited our site in some form. In June 2018, that figure was 116,770. That's more than double!
• New users -- people who'd never previously visited our site once -- are at 170,116 for the month. That's the biggest such number we've ever had.
• Our outside referral traffic had been insanely reliant on Twitter -- 46.6 percent -- and, with Twitter's ongoing decline, that wasn't a safe place to be. This year, our Twitter referrals now comprise only 34.0 percent, compared to big increases for Facebook -- almost even with Twitter now at 31.6 percent -- as well as Google searches, Google News and other outlets that now share our links.
Not everyone who checks us out will subscribe. Maybe only 1 or 2 percent will. But the best way to raise one number is to raise the other. -- DK
GROWING WITH WPXI
There's a new weekly program called 'Halftime Adjustments.' It's available online and on your smart TV, too, if you download the new WPXI Now app. Here's the second episode from this past Wednesday, with Alby Oxenreiter and me discussing a bunch of Steelers/Penguins/Pirates topics for a half-hour:
There's also an expanded content-sharing arrangement in the works, one in which some of our free material -- almost always straight news -- will be available on their sports page. They'll still have to come here for the full article, so it's a win-win in that we'll bring new eyeballs here from one of the city's busiest websites. The possibilities are endless, really, and our minds collectively start swirling all over when we get to talking. But, as ever -- and I remind of this a lot -- we're 100 percent independent. -- DK
VETERANS COUNT: 181
Josh DeNinno at Moon Golf Club wants to remind readers of his Veterans Challenge to our subscribers. Josh is buying 10 a month himself for a total of 100 in 2019, and he's challenging subscribers to achieve a goal of 1,000 by year's end. The current count is 181. Here’s where to contribute. -- DK
LIFETIMES LEFT: 37
We've sold 63 Lifetime Lunatic subscriptions, including nine more this week, so only 37 remain toward our cap of 100. There's no plan to sell more in the foreseeable future. It costs $299. If you'd like one, buy it here. If you're an existing subscriber and want to go Lifetime, do the same thing, then email us at Help@DKPittsburghSports.com to let us know. We'll refund the remainder of your existing account. -- DK
BECOME A PARTNER
We're always looking to grow our base of business partners, and there currently are several very good opportunities available to take advantage of our unprecedented reach. Our 2019 media kit has all the info you’d want. Email me directly at Dali@DKPittsburghSports.com to set up a meeting. -- Dali
***premium***
WE'RE LISTENING
• The face/touch login will take longer than we'd expected, unfortunately. We're weighing other options. I'll keep you informed. -- DK
• In the interim, if you're logging in too often, delete the app from your device, power the device down completely, then reinstall the app. This has worked wonders for almost everyone who's tried it. -- DK
• If you enjoy the Hot Button feature and would like to receive app alerts when there's a new entry, open your app, then the menu on the top right corner, then ALERTS. Toggle the new Hot Button icon to ON. We had that added in the past week. -- DK
BACK TO BUSINESS
• New subscribers for 2019 are at 525. You can now track this figure daily at the bottom of the desktop and tablet versions of the site.
• Our daily active app users, averaged out over the past week, are at 12,412, broken down as 9,830 on Apple, 2,582 on Android. That total's plus-353 from the previous week. This figure will always fluctuate with the seasons and the news, so the goal is a steady, gradual increase, initially to 15,000, a number we've never achieved.
• Our daily page views, averaged out over the past 30 days, are at 78,135, up 26.9 percent from the previous 30 days The goal with this figure is to average 100,000, a number we've achieved only during the two Stanley Cup runs.
• Our most-hit original article of the past week -- exempting live files -- was DK's column from Vancouver on Jim Rutherford's plans for the Penguins at 17,058. The Penguins accounted for 202,332 page views, the Pirates 120,840 and the Steelers 63,323.
• We're at 32,498 (+58) followers on Twitter, we're at 32,187 (-38) page likes on Facebook, we're at 10,921 (+23) followers on Instagram. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.
• If you've got a blog or forum or social media account with some significant background and credibility, email me directly at DK@DKPittsburghSports.com to see how we can partner up.
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• We make mistakes. If you see one, email Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Anything you need, including lost/forgotten passwords, email us: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com
