It's our birthday!
Well, not quite yet. This Wednesday, July 22, marks the sixth anniversary of the site's launch. So as the longest-tenured person on staff, I figured I'd pop in here and share a few words.
The site's come a long way since it launched in 2014. Just look at the banner atop the homepage the day the site launched, which looks like something I would have designed for my Myspace page in eighth grade:
Since then, the homepage has definitely gotten a lot better, and the content and people on staff have gotten better, too. This is the best staff we've had since I've been around, and things are only about to get better with the launch of the new app/site soon.
Speaking for my own growth here in the four and a half years that I've been around, I can't say that I ever expected to be doing what I am now, and I definitely wouldn't be where I am now had I not ended up with this site in the first place.
I remember following Dejan on Twitter back in 2015, and seeing him send out a tweet asking if anyone knew how to make gifs. I replied with a link to my Tumblr page full of my own gifs (mostly of Jaromir Jagr and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton players), and apparently that was good enough. For the next few months I would gif the occasional highlight for the site while still in college and working at a frozen yogurt place in Baltimore.
Before my last semester of college, I actually was hired part-time to run the social media, and a week after graduating in 2016, I moved here to do social full-time. That's all I ever wanted to do. I never really wanted to write, I don't think I ever saw it as an option.
I had always followed the prospects and minor leagues closely, but it was just for fun. After a year of living here, because I followed the prospects already, I got pushed into writing our weekly Wilkes-Barre features. I wasn't all that happy about it, because I had never done anything like this before. My first feature was this one on Swedish prospect Lukas Bengtsson in November 2017, and I enjoyed doing it.
After a while, I started getting pushed into writing more about the team in Pittsburgh, which I wasn't happy with in the beginning either, because I wanted to stick to writing about the prospects. I've been writing about the NHL team regularly for about a year and a half now, and I enjoy doing that now, too.
In the time that I've been here, I've been able to carve out a role based on what I actually enjoy doing, which I just don't think would be possible anywhere else. I do write about the NHL team, but I also get to keep doing weekly features on Wilkes-Barre and Wheeling, and I get to write about women's hockey whenever I can. I don't know where else I'd get that kind of freedom, and the response from readers with those kinds of stories make the work even more worth it.
That's enough about me, though.
Usually around this time of year we'd have a big party to celebrate the anniversary, but coronavirus makes that impossible this year. Maybe we'll be able to figure out a way to celebrate in the future, but for now let's just get together in the comment section below. What's your favorite memory from your time with us? Your favorite story you've read here? Let's hear it in the comments!
BIG WEEK FOR PODS
I wrote in this space a week ago we weren't likely to match a really big showing on podcast downloads this week. That was incorrect. Our DK Sports Radio feeds produced 35,505 downloads for the past week, up from 31,343 the previous week. Which is awesome.
• Apple
• Spotify
• Stitcher
• Overcast
Yet again, thank you! -- Dejan
KOVAK TAKES NEW JOB
This will disappoint you, I'm betting, as much as it did us: Mike Kovak, who's been doing a wonderful job covering Pitt, has taken a job in the public sector and will be leaving us near month's end.
Yeah, I know. Boo.
As Mike will attest, Dale Lolley and I tried to do what we could, but a done deal's a done deal. So I hope you'll join us in wishing him well, which you can easily do yourself under the articles he'll still write for us.
Obviously, we'll be looking for a replacement on the Pitt beat. -- Dejan
WHERE'S THE APP?
The app's made more significant progress in the past few days, and I know because I've been directly involved in a lot of the back and forth. I'm no longer attaching a date for when it'll be done, but I'll say we're shooting for this month.
Hoping for the best. -- Dejan
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our daily page views, averaged out over the past week, were 46,816, a tiny uptick over last week's ugly low. The general goal with this figure is to average 100,000, but that's obviously not going to be realistic for a while.
• Our most-hit original article of the past week was my news coverage of the Penguins holding out nine players from camp, at 4,740 views. Overall, the Penguins accounted for 91,783 page views, the Steelers 46,013, the Pirates 45,829, and Pitt 9,230.
• Again, our podcast channel had 35,505 downloads for the past week, up from 31,343 the previous week. Also again, this is awesome.
• We're at 36,654 (+55) followers on Twitter, we're at 33,709 (+28) page likes on Facebook, we're at 14,614 (+29) followers on Instagram. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.
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