On any rare semi-free day near the beginning of any month, I like to look at some of our broader metrics to see where we are as a venture. And that basically boils down to two basics:
• Readership
• Revenue
Both are up, both are trending well. And it's been a good feeling, to be honest, one I felt compelled to share in this Site Stuff.
A bit of background: When this place was born July 22, 2014, it pretty much exploded. Which still seems nuts to me, given that it was completely spontaneous, zero buildup, zero advertising, but it did. The growth kept right on going through 2015, as well, to the point I was motivated to start hiring staff toward a full media operation. And then, in 2016, then 2017, the local hockey franchise sent this into orbit. People buy irrationally when their team wins a championship, and we benefited from two years of that.
It happened way too fast, as I've written before. We couldn't handle it. Not from a tech standpoint. Not from an organizational standpoint.
Now, through 2018 and 2019, we've found our water's level, if you will. Things are normal. The explosion's way in the past, and maybe the championships are, too. (Sorry!) But the good part is that we now have five-plus years from which to cull extensive experience, at least by startup standards, and we'd like to think we've learned a lot.
So, in that context, what's interested me the most is year-over-year data, because that illustrates the difference between one normal year and another:
• In the past four months, per Google Analytics, we've had 8.61 million page views, compared to 5.49 million in the same span in 2018. That's a stirring increase of 57 percent. And in that time, I'll remind, none of our local teams or their related events exactly helped out. That leads me to believe -- or at least hope -- that our readers are simply happier with our content.
• New users, meaning people visiting or trying us for the first time, are also way up: It's 985,137 the past four months vs. 269,266 over the same span in 2018. That's nearly quadruple. This one's a little easier to explain, as we've made inroads on multiple other platforms with our general news content through publishing partnerships with WPXI, Bleacher Report, Chat Sports and other outlets. But still, it's huge.
• Revenue ... isn't anywhere near that exponential, but up is up. We've seen increased subscription revenue in six of the nine months so far. In two of the ones where we fell short, we didn't have a prayer, as April and May of 2018 saw us sell 500 Lifetime Lunatic subs. So the only normal month in which we were down this year was March. And in particular, this September we just completed was the biggest subscription revenue month we've had since that hallowed April 2018.
• The only real down element has been in the area of completely new subscribers. It's an OK pace, but it's down 10 percent from a year ago. Now, we did have a couple more gimmicky sales last year, so that's part of it. But we definitely want and need to get that figure higher. If you know of anyone who might be interested, by all means, let them know they can try us for 99 measly cents for a full month.
Yeah, it's good. Can still get better.
Thanks, as always, to everyone who's helped make it happen.
THE TECH UPDATE
Many hours were invested this week in the app design. Or, as my wife Dali derisively describes it, "the fun part." (Spoken like someone who'll eventually supervise the not-fun subscription and commerce platforms.)
That said, it really was fun. And we've actually got images, animations and other elements that make it feel real, even in this super-early phase. I can't share any yet, but I shipped a copy last night to our chief editor, Bob Maddamma, and he had a reaction that matched ours.
How long will it take?
Still don't really know. I'd love to say January, but one never knows what variables might clog the works along the way. And to repeat from last week, the last thing we want to do is rush needlessly at the expense of not doing something right.
In the meantime ... absolutely the current app/site will continue to have issues for some, notably the logins. What I want to make clear is that our priority at this time is the new app/site. That's 100 percent on us, not on our current developer and friends at Build In Motion. We made that decision, not them. So if anyone wants to yell at anyone from now until the next thing launches, yell directly at me.
We'd rather looked ahead.
CURTIS PHARMACY BACK!
I've made no secret of my affection for Erich Cushey and Curtis Pharmacy, our little-engine-that-could sponsor of this particular weekly feature. They're the example I use when we're meeting with anyone in a business setting for how we treat all our partners with the same respect, large or small.
Curtis has renewed its commitment to this feature, I'm happy to say.
And they'd be happy, in turn, if we let them know it's appreciated by patronizing them either at the banner above or at their two locations, in Claysville and Washington, Pa.
VETERAN COUNT: 335
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 335. That's appreciated. Here’s where to contribute. -- DK
BACK TO BUSINESS
• New subscribers for 2019 are at 854. (Fifty-two new in the past week!) 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 101,649. I've been citing here for months now that the goal with this figure is to average 100,000 — a number we've achieved only during the two Stanley Cup runs -- and this is the first time since then that we've done it.
• Our most-hit original article of the past week was my latest column on the Pirates' front office at 71,437. And yes, for the couple of readers who asked in Brewing this week, that's the most-read thing we've ever had here, exempting one live file. (Try to guess which one in comments.) The Pirates accounted for 187,751 page views, the Penguins 169,927, and the Steelers 136,680.
• We're at 34,034 (+178) followers on Twitter, we're at 32,106 (+16) page likes on Facebook, we're at 11,536 (+45) followers on Instagram. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.
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