All our weekly and daily features are sponsored, you might have noticed. Friday Insider, Stats 'N' At, Sunday's Best, Cartoon Canon, Drive to the Net, Mound Visit, Live Qs at 5, the minor-league baseball, and this one, too. Erich Cushey and our friends at Curtis Pharmacy have been the pillars -- pillers? -- beneath Saturday Site Stuff for years.
Only one stands unsupported: Carter's Classroom.
And I've got to tell you, that's leaving Chris Carter, maybe the most energetic man on the planet, feeling plenty down these days.
Imagine this guy being down:
Here's how this works here for budgeting purposes: We make sure we can handle all our beats from the news coverage standpoint. That's the meat and potatoes. But the weekly and daily features are the gravy, if you will. They're above and beyond. And as such, they require funding that's above and beyond.
Fortunately, as noted, we've had businesses step up ... for everything but Classroom. Which is odd considering it's long been among our most loved features, as well as one of our most trafficked. We've tried -- and Carter's tried himself -- to push for a sponsor here and on social media and, beyond the occasional nibble, there hasn't been much of a response.
So hey, let's fix this and, in turn, allow us to help grow your business!
Email my wife Dali at Dali@DKPittsburghSports.com to ask anything you'd like. And if you're interested in an advance peek at what we offer on all scales, here's our 2019 media kit.
TWO DAYS LEFT!
We're making one hard, final push on a HALF-OFF SALE from now until the ball flies in Foxborough at exactly 8:20 p.m. Sunday. As with all sales, this is for new subscribers only, as we strive to keep growing our readership. So if you know someone who loves the Steelers, let them know that this is the time to sign up!
THE AB EFFECT
It never fails: We'll post an update on Antonio Brown's latest drama -- there was yet another late Friday night -- and someone, or even a few someones will complain in comments that "no one cares" or "this isn't a Pittsburgh story." The latter is so wrong it's not even worth addressing. And the former ... well, here's a number for you: In the past 30 days, we've had 233,550 page views on content in which we've specifically tagged AB's name for tracking purposes. People care.
THE BIG TECH THING
We're going to build an all-new app, an all-new site, as was announced here a couple weeks ago and, as we've continued to have more meetings and discussions, some concepts are starting to crystallize. In that spirit, here's the latest peppering of you with questions on this process: Commenting under articles, commenting in an open forum or both?
ALEX TOONS IN
Our new baseball contributor, Alex Stumpf, is so smitten with Rob Ullman's illustration of him that he's vowing to use it in place of all photography on all personal documents henceforth:
ROB ULLMAN / DKPSThe rest of us simply worried if it made him look too cool. Which it probably does.
VETERAN COUNT: 309
Early this year, our friend Josh DeNinno at Moon Golf Club came up with the concept of pushing all of us to reach 1,000 full-year military subscriptions for the calendar year through his Veterans Challenge. And to back that, Josh is buying 10 a month himself for a total of 100, leaving 900 for everyone else. To date, we've sold and committed 309. That's awesome and appreciated. Here’s where to contribute.
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 at Dali@DKPittsburghSports.com to set up a meeting.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• New subscribers for 2019 are at 744. You can track this figure daily at the bottom of the desktop and tablet versions of the site.
• Our daily page views, averaged out over the past 30 days, are at 87,103. 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 was Dale's final cuts for the Steelers at 13,043. The Steelers accounted for 165,088 page views, the Pirates 74,246, and the Penguins 59,006.
• We're at 33,366 (+130) followers on Twitter, we're at 32,073 (+15) page likes on Facebook, we're at 11,389 (+22) followers on Instagram. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.
• Get our free newsletter with a simple signup! We send out a new one Monday-Friday at 7 a.m.
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