Complaints and criticism from customers aren't always bad for a company.
If I'm being honest, the new beginning yesterday for the Point Park University Friday Insider, our franchise feature, originated through caring, constructive feedback from readers. Who, if they had no investment in what we create, could just as easily close the door in our faces and go elsewhere.
Hey, it's the same reason we openly invite readers to email us with every tiny typo they might spot. (Which they do, and we appreciate every single one.) Because if we get the chance to clean it up, it makes for a more professional experience for all readers.
Well, let's stretch the concept out this weekend, and tackle this for us, please: What do you like about our coverage, what would you improve, and how?
And for the purpose of streamlining the subject, what we're seeking here isn't stuff about technology, isn't about which teams/colleges we cover or don't cover, isn't about adding a where-are-they-now feature (the century-long staple that everyone requests, then never reads!) ... but rather, it's about the approach to our coverage.
Are we complete enough in the news we deliver on the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates?
Should we move toward including news that might first be reported elsewhere, further ensuring you'll have everything under one figurative roof?
More or less analysis/opinion?
More features more often?
As ever, I'll be in comments to discuss, and please accept our thanks in advance for anything you contribute.
WANTED: VENDORS, MERCHANTS
Our new Downtown Pittsburgh headquarters will come with a retail component, and we've already landed photographer Dave DiCello, artist Cody Sabol and, of course, our own staff cartoonist, Rob Ullman, while still searching for more.
What we're hoping to offer visitors to our HQ is a world-class collection of Pittsburgh sports memorabilia from the region's premier talents. It'll be a retail collective, meaning we function as the storefront, and a set number of independent merchants manage their own space, ensuring the greatest understanding and awareness of the products that might be of peak interest. They avoid rent and overhead, and we avoid the procurement of goods, so it's super-low on risk.
We were inspired by our now-next-door-neighbors, the new Ensemble On Fifth retail collective that's home to roughly 15 independent vendors -- from an initial list of applications topping 200! -- and that's already doing quite well in their first couple months of operation.
We'll likely wind up with a smaller number, at least at the outset, to try to keep things simple and to help ensure the success of those who launch along with us. But that said, we have zero clue how this will grow and how we'll react to that. If, for example, a vendor offers only one product -- we already have one such possibility -- they obviously wouldn't consume as much space.
Want to be part of this?
If you feel you're qualified, and you share our passion for this project, reach out to Dali directly: Dali@DKPittsburghSports.com
CONSTRUCTION UPDATE
Most of the building work's in the past week came in the form of purchases ... that we had nowhere to put. Lighting, flooring, wallpaper, even our very own EXIT sign, just basically splattered across our living headquarters until construction allows us to take it where it needs to go.
Oh, and we've also come close to finding a video projection that'll take up almost all of an open 12-foot wall. It'll show our TV commercial on infinite loop -- with the sound down on the annoying voiceover guy, mercifully -- but it'll also be available for other visual elements.
Beyond that, the biggest thing to share is that, on Thursday night after the Penguins lost to Seattle, Dali came to pick me up at PPG Paints Arena, we drove straight down Fifth Avenue, curious to see how the place looked after it'd finally be emptied by the builders. And let's just say it made for a pretty emotional moment.
Yeah, we're pumped for this.
THE BRICK WALL
We're still not close on particulars, but we're looking hard into offering readers a chance to partake in the building of one full wall in the place. Portrayed in the form of -- what else? -- bricks, they'd be available in various sizes at various prices, and the buyer would get a replica of that brick for themselves.
Stay tuned.
UPCOMING EDITORIAL TRAVEL
We go where the stories are:
• Dale Lolley will fly early next week to college football's Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., to get a firsthand look at a sizable portion of the next NFL Draft class.
• Taylor Haase will fly out at midweek to cover the NHL All-Star Game, Feb. 5 in Las Vegas.
• I'll fly to Boston to pick up the Penguins' first post-break action.
WEEKLY APP TIPS
Ways to make the app experience even better:
• With every game coverage file we offer, there's an accompanying collection of a boxscore, standings, scoreboard and much more. All are rooted in our software, and we love what all of them offer. Hand-crafted.
• We're in the process of replacing the bottom right button on the app with a direct route to our burgeoning podcasts. That button now takes readers to our live Twitter feed, which will move to the horizontal blue bar across the home page.
• You can add bold-face and italics in your comments. Use whatever keyboard combination you normally would to generate those. On Apple, for example, it's CMD+B for bold, CMD+I for italic.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our page views for the past week were 485,563. Our most-read original piece was Dale's coverage of Ben Roethlisberger's retirement, at 48,619. Broken down by team, articles on the Steelers brought 29.3% of our traffic, the Penguins 28.2%, the Pirates 5.6%, Penn State 1.3%, and Pitt 1.0%.
• Our podcast downloads for the past week were 254,082.
• Our YouTube video views for the past week were 70,123.
• We're at 43,388 followers on Twitter, 37,608 on Facebook, 14,580 on Instagram, 10,707 on YouTube. These figures are just for our official company accounts on each of those platforms, not including any of our individual accounts.
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email: Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Anything you need, including lost/forgotten passwords, email: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Random trivia fun, to be read in an Alex Trebek voice: My friends in the excellent Pittsburgh band Seven Color Sky generously contributed the music to all three of my Daily Shot podcasts. Name THREE (and no fewer) songs that have the word 'Pittsburgh' in them. And don't be adding any jingles or Steelers fight songs or nonsense like that. Real, published music.