Come for the good company, stay for the free T-shirt!
Or the other way around!
The seventh anniversary of DK Pittsburgh Sports will be celebrated TODAY, Thursday, July 15, beginning at 5 p.m., at Mike's Beer Bar on the North Shore, and we'd absolutely love if you come down to see us.
Yes, in person.
Yes, everyone's invited.
Yes, bring family and friends.
Here's our Facebook event page if you'd be kind enough to RSVP your intent to attend. There's no cover, no catch, no obligation of any kind. In fact, the first 50 subscribers on hand will receive a free T-shirt bearing our revamped logo, the raw beginning of our building a permanent store for merch. It'll be our first chance in far too long -- our entire staff and everyone who shows -- to chat about sports, the business, each other, whatever.
For anyone who's new here, we launched as a one-reporter, two-person -- me and my wife Dali -- operation back in July of 2014. By most outside forecasts, we probably should've lasted about, oh, maybe a couple days before I'd go crawling back to some newspaper job. Instead, and entirely because of the extraordinary community that's been built here ... well, here we are, stronger than ever and having inspired similar ventures across the continent and, in at least a couple cases, beyond that.
Hope to see you there!
(And stay tuned for our first out-of-town meetup, about a week later in San Francisco!)
CLOSED CAPTIONING ADDED
My every-weekday Daily Shot podcasts -- one each on Steelers, Penguins and Pirates -- now have closed captioning offered, thanks to our revitalized YouTube channel.
All you do is find that day's Shot ...
... and press the little CC button down there at the bottom. It won't be precise -- they butcher my name, for instance -- but it's not bad, either.
I've been really surprised, to be candid, by how many are listening to these show by watching the videos. There've been a couple episodes lately where the video's drawn a bigger audience than the audio. Not sure why, but hey.
Anyone else doing this?
Oh, and let me know what you think of the closed captioning, OK?
WEEKLY APP TIPS
Sharing ways to make your app experience even better:
• Did you know we have live, self-updating boxscores?
Here, for example, is the box from the Pirates getting demolished last night in New York. Absolutely everything that Major League Baseball offers to any box is included in ours. And when the game's going on, you'll see pitch-by-pitch, batter-vs.-pitcher updates across the top.
We include a link to every box inside our live game files, but you also can find any box by visiting our Pirates team page and tapping the schedule. Same goes for the current standings and statistics.
We also offer all of this for the Penguins, and I spent part of my day yesterday working with the developers to ensure we're ready for the Steelers, as well.
• We've added a LIVE staff Twitter feed to the app! It's easy to access by pushing the bottom right button on the app, one that replaces the previous LIVE page -- collecting live game files -- that very few were using. One tap is all it takes to check out up-to-the-second material from our reporters wherever we happen to be. Without leaving the app. On laptop/desktop, it's just as easy: It's atop the home page on the right side of our floating menu bar.
• Go get an avatar! Go to your profile, tap the little camera icon near the top, insert any image that's 300x300 or smaller, tap SAVE, and that's it. This will now show as your image on comments, as well as the top left corner of your home page.
THE MILITARY DRIVE
Inspired by Josh DeNinno at Moon Golf Club, we're striving to connect an unprecedented 2,000 military veterans to their favorite teams with free one-year subscriptions in 2021.
So far, we're at 463, including 30 in the past week.
Every contribution counts, large and small, and they're all appreciated equally. Plain and simple, we don't reach our goal with just the big ones or just the small ones. All are needed.
The cost of a single one-year military subscription is always $20. You can contribute one, or as many as you'd like. And the process couldn't be simpler: Email me directly at DK@DKPittsburghSports.com and let me know how many you'd like, and I, in turn, can thank you personally.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our page views for the past week were 320,553, down 20.2% from the previous week. Our most-read original piece again was my exclusive reporting on top prospect Jordan Lawlar's visit to the Pirates, at 10,771. Broken down by team, articles on the Pirates brought 35.3% of our traffic, the Steelers 13.4%, the Penguins 13.2%.
• Our new subscribers for the past week were at 43, up 19 from the previous week.
• Our new app downloads for the past week were 24 for Apple, down 36 from the previous week, and 27 for Android, down 5 from the previous week.
• Our podcast downloads for the past week were 67,889, down 9% from the previous week.
• Our YouTube video views for the past week were 204,796, up 141% from the previous week.
• We're at 41,645 (+84) followers on Twitter, we're at 37,128 (-12) followers on Facebook, we're at 14,606 (+1) followers on Instagram, and we're at 4,914 (+187) followers on YouTube. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email: Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Anything you need, including lost/forgotten passwords, email: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Random geographic fun, to be read in an Alex Trebek voice: This city was No. 1 outside the U.S., No. 32 overall, with 232 unique app users in the past week. Even though English is not the principal language spoken there.