Site Stuff: Editorial resolutions taken in Downtown (Courtesy of Curtis Pharmacy)

DALI KOVACEVIC / DKPS

I've spent a lot of this space in recent weeks setting up our new app and, in fact, there's more on that once again down below. But our planning for improvements in 2020 goes beyond tech.

There's also the small matter of the actual content.

Start with this: We're happy -- and more important, our readers appear to be happy -- with what we're doing, how we're doing it and who's doing it. And that's ideal, obviously. We've seen the results in our retention numbers, as well as tangential evidence of word-of-mouth new buyers who heard about what we're offering here.

But everyone here, myself included, can always do better. And here are three things we've discussed that we hope will make your experience here even better in the coming year:

More human features: I'll bluntly admit that we've gradually gotten away from these, and that was never our intent. Collectively, we've become too much about games, practices and news, and not enough about the people behind that.

We're still navigating how best to execute this, but know that it's our No. 1 editorial priority and that everyone on the staff, myself included, will be involved. We get to know these people, and you will, too.

An everyday Grind: No regular feature here gets read like Tuesday Takes. And yes, as I've often written in the past, it's a feature that's forever frustrated me. It never feels complete, never frequent enough to establish a real rhythm. As a result, I've forever hoped to make it an every-weekday thing, albeit scaled back in scope.

So that's the goal.

No, it won't keep me from writing full-length columns. It probably won't even cut down on them. If that's what's warranted, that's what'll be written.

But it will offer me -- no, challenge me -- to produce material with a more regular, predictable rhythm. And I'm very comfortable with that, provided a support system's in place, meaning covering other tasks I currently perform. That's in the works.

Possible expansion of colleges: This is the furthest thing in the world from a promise, if only because I'd rather not have a divorce forced upon me. But we've liked the early response we've gotten from Pitt readers to our basketball coverage, enough that we're encouraged about what it might mean moving forward for other schools.

We'd need to work out cost-effective ways to cover them, while at the same time not lowering our standards. That's tricky, regardless of how many associated gift subscriptions we sell at the outset. It's got to be a sustainable model. So there's still a lot to digest on this front.

Duquesne and Penn State would obviously be the top priorities, not necessarily in that order depending on the timing of a season. What we won't do is start covering any team mid-season, which means the Dukes are out for 2019-2020.

Oh, and a related matter ...

SPONSOR MY COLUMNS, DAMMIT

Or, as I should say, please sponsor my columns, dammit.

No, really, it's funny that for all the features we've had sponsored at our site, the columns have never had one. (Not fully, anyway. Takes once had a sponsor.) And this having the profile that it does, not to mention all the related social media, it feels like it'd make a fine business opportunity for someone.

So, before we put that out to the broader public, I'll broach it here: If you think it might fit your business, shoot me an email: DK@DKPittsburghSports.com

H2P COUNT: 899

As of 11:59 p.m. Saturday, exactly 10 weeks since the announcement that we're bringing back Pitt coverage, we've sold a total of 899 H2P Subscriptions. That includes 63 sold in the past week, which was pretty uplifting as things had really started to die down a few days ago ... and then yesterday brought a single one.

Here's how to get yours. Let's finish this.

NEW APP UPDATE

It's all kind of quiet in app-land, at least from our perspective, because this is when the underbelly gets built. And the developers don't really need our guidance for that part, so we pretty much sit and wait.

One cool feature I'll share this week:

That five-button blue bar that stretches across the middle will function as a main navigation through our content. And if those words look familiar -- Brew, Grind, Java, etc. -- they should. That'll be where we house What's Brewing (our daily setup piece and schedule), the Grind (my columns), Morning Java (all our multimedia content, including Java itself), then finally Bob Maddamma's Hot Button that collects news from everywhere.

Going with our longstanding terminology was met with a modicum of resistance. It's really not standard operating procedure. When trying to push a new product, it's safer to go with generic terms like Schedule, Columns, Videos, etc. But we're not new, and neither are most of our subscribers, and we want all of you to feel at home at the new place.

One last thing: Before he passed this past summer, our friend and baseball analyst Jason Rollison suggested we refer to the comments section as 'THE ASYLUM.' Because, you know, Lunatics. And we'll be doing exactly that.

BACK TO BUSINESS

• New subscribers for 2020, not including gifts, military and the like, are at 16. 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 85,534. 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. We had our lowest month since the summer.

• Our most-hit original article of the past week was Dale Lolley's analysis of T.J. Watt's contract status at 24,599. The Penguins accounted for 163,889 page views, the Steelers 138,255, the Pirates 46,753, and Pitt basketball 17,876.

• We're at 35,331 (+74) followers on Twitter, we're at 32,048 (-4) page likes on Facebook, we're at 12,816 (+192) 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.

• We make mistakes. If you see one, email Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com

• Anything you need, including lost/forgotten passwords, email us: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com

Loading...
Loading...