I've shared often over the years my respect for everything Fred Rogers represented, both to our city and to the world. As one of countless kids he helped raise in his own inimitable way, I feel like I'd be just as appreciative of that even if he hadn't been one of our own.
But he was. Through and through.
So when Lilli Mosco, VP of development at WQED, reached out a little while back to see if we'd want to partake in part of that venerable institution's annual membership drive, we immediately said yes. And when she went further and asked if we'd donate free one-year subscriptions to city newcomers as part of a WQED welcome kit, we immediately said yes. And when she went completely over the top and asked if I'd be willing to record a show with the legendary Rick Sebak ... yeah, that one got more than a yes.
We went ahead and recorded 'Purely Pittsburgh,' a half-hour program that, in WQED-style, mixes some classic Sebak footage with us talking about the city, its passion for sports and, of course, the drive itself.
Here's a promo:
Your eyes are not deceiving you! Yes... that is @DKPghSports' @Dejan_Kovacevic & WQED's @rickaroundhere joining forces for what can only be described as #PurelyPittsburgh! JOIN US SATURDAY 2PM AND 7PM! https://t.co/dDe11403z8 pic.twitter.com/MtaZNcct54
— WQED Pittsburgh (@wqed) October 18, 2019
The full show debuts today and airs five times this weekend:
Today: 2 p.m., 7 p.m.
Tomorrow: 1 a.m., noon, 7:30 p.m.
Would love to hear from you if you get a chance to catch it.
THE TECH UPDATE
Many more hours were invested this week in the app design and, by yesterday, we had a home page, team pages, article pages and our first glimpse at the new commenting platform.
We can't share this imagery here yet -- though I did show it in person to subscribers who came to our East Liberty meetup last night -- but suffice it to say for now that it's a very clean, sleek look and functionality. Nothing's too crowded, too muddled. Healthy amount of white space and margins, somewhat influenced by the simple look of the New York Times app. Our priority on every millimeter of this thing is being user-friendly.
Nice thing is, we've been around a while, and we've got a pretty good idea of what people want. In most tech settings, the clients are guessing at this sort of thing. Not us. We've observed your habits and listened to you for five-plus years now.
Which leads to this week's question, one we debated ourselves: Do we really need/want a mute mechanism in comments?
We can do this. In fact, we have it drawn up. But I'm honestly a little leery of making something like that so readily accessible -- it's a mute button appearing under the commenter's avatar -- and possibly leading to too many voices being muzzled at a whim.
We're willing to listen, though. (And we definitely won't mute your thoughts on it.)
HELP NEEDED ON VETS
I'll always make known when we need extra help on veteran subscriptions, and we're there now. My daughter Dara, who manages these, reports a minus-43 at the moment.
Here's what that means: We have 43 more requests from veterans for a free one-year subscription than we have matching donations. For anyone who's new, our company covers all active-duty military, and our readers resultantly offered a long time ago to do likewise for those who've already served our country.
For the year, we've sold and committed 382 of these. That's making our goal of 1,000 look highly unlikely. Early this year, our friend Josh DeNinno at Moon Golf Club came up with the concept of pushing all of us toward that goal 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.
I don't meant to turn a positive into a negative, though. Every last contribution makes a difference, and every last one is appreciated.
Here’s where to contribute. -- DK
BACK TO BUSINESS
• New subscribers for 2019 are at 885. 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 94,165. I've been citing here for months now that the goal with this figure is to average 100,000, a number we've achieved regularly only during the two Stanley Cup runs.
• Our most-hit original article of the past week was Tuesday Takes at 13,272. The Steelers accounted for 158,708 page views, the Penguins 156,122, and the Pirates 55,674.
• We're at 34,225 (+93) followers on Twitter, we're at 32,092 (+1) page likes on Facebook, we're at 11,565 (+21) followers on Instagram. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.
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