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DALI KOVACEVIC / DKPS

Jim Stamm, Dejan Kovacevic and Gary Morgan at the seventh anniversary celebration Thursday night, Mike's Beer Bar, North Shore.

As we celebrate our seventh anniversary this month, a sliver of trivia for you Original Lunatics: Can you list our entire editorial staff for 2014?

A little too easy, right?

OK, so I didn't exactly have to worry about anything other than running around from game to game, flying from town to town, and writing, writing, writing. In fact, it wasn't until 2015 that the thought had even occurred to Dali and me that we could expand and hire additional people. The objective at the outset was very much for this to remain me forever.

It's obviously not that anymore, and it'll never be that again. That's one beauty of this venture, that it's become about Taylor Haase, Dale Lolley, Dave Molinari, Chris Carter, who've all been with us for years, every bit as much as it's about me. It's about the collective coverage. And given my semi-obsessive personality, it was always going to become something like that, anyway. I'd never have it any other way.

At the same time ... and please take this in the proper spirit ... there's also a part of me that misses worrying about nothing more than what I was worrying about in 2014. Where I just want to run around from game to game, fly from town to town, and write, write, write.

I'm going to get back to that. And I'm going to do that beginning with the flip of the calendar from July to August.

I'll save super-specific details until closer to that date, but suffice it to say for now that it'll be some daily form of the 21 Takes that everyone seems to really be reading. It won't -- and can't -- be 21, but it'll follow the format, and it'll offer a written array of bullets on all three of our teams, plus whatever else happens to pop up.

I've wanted to do this for the longest time, as Dali can attest. I've always felt this site's incomplete without something like that. But the pandemic came along, pushed our business to the limits and countless other priorities arose. Now that things are smoothing -- go get vaccinated if you haven't already! -- we're more capable of making this happen.

Can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to this. The past year and a half haven't been much fun, in general, and I'm stoked about this on that count alone. 

This will be fun.

NEW MULTIMEDIA DIRECTOR

Meet Eddie Provident, IT professional, pastor, all-around swell guy ... and our new multimedia director at DK Pittsburgh Sports!

Know all those times I've referenced all the help that I and we need managing this growing -- no, exploding -- video/podcast component to the company?

Well, Dali had spent the better part of six weeks rifling through resumes and interviewing applicants for this role or that role, as we were certain we needed to piecemeal all these different things we needed to have done. Then, along comes Eddie, part of our Mad Chad and Eddie Show, along with Chad Nolan ...

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS

Chad Nolan, left, and Eddie Provident record at DKPS Podcast Network studios this week.

... and it turns out Eddie can not only do everything but also do it well and do it with a passion for what we do. (I'm not sure we've ever had anyone come aboard who was this stoked about it!)

Eddie won't be as visible as most of our staffers, but he'll be as intensely involved and valuable as anyone. By taking charge of this area, he'll help us keep growing -- no, exploding -- while I can focus on football, hockey, baseball and all that.

Please join us in welcoming Eddie!

MEETUP: SAN FRANCISCO!

I don't have an exact location selected yet, but let's circle next Friday, July 23, for our next meetup ... in San Francisco!

It'll be at some point in the afternoon, and it'll have to be somewhere near whatever the Giants are calling their ballpark this week. There's plenty enough nearby, and I'll be able to twin that with my batting practice responsibilities.

When I've got that figured out, I'll share in What's Brewing, OK?

Hope to see you there!

THANKS AGAIN!

To everyone who showed up for the Pittsburgh meetup Thursday night at Mike's Beer Bar, wow, thank you yet again! Saw so many familiar faces, plus a few new ones that I could finally attach to names, plus ... just everything!

Video and pics are here.

WEEKLY APP TIPS

Sharing ways to make your app experience even better:

• USE ... THE ... BLUE ... BAR!

I take this one personally because it's my baby!

This is the bar that spans the horizontal middle of the app's home page, and it features three other easy-to-access options, our TODAY schedule which includes the latest What's Brewing and staff locator map, plus separate tabs for all our VIDEOS and PODCASTS. Because of the sliding function to the content, it's simple to move through all four options.

• Did you know we have live, self-updating boxscores? Here, for example, is the box from the Pirates yet again beating the Mets last night at PNC Park. 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'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.

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 466, including three 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 appreciated. 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 390,355, up 21.8% from the previous week. Our most-read original piece was my 21 Takes column, at 11,319. Broken down by team, articles on the Pirates brought 33.9% of our traffic, the Steelers 14.1%, the Penguins 13.9%.

• Our new subscribers for the past week were at 86, exactly doubled from the previous week.

• Our new app downloads for the past week were 58 for Apple, up 34 from the previous week, and 37 for Android, up 10 from the previous week.

• Our podcast downloads for the past week were 73,305, up 8% from the previous week.

• Our YouTube video views for the past week were 96,655, down 52% from the previous week.

• We're at 41,747 (+102) followers on Twitter, we're at 37,090 (-38) followers on Facebook, we're at 14,603 (-3) followers on Instagram, and we're at 5,104 (+90) 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 out-of-state city was ranked No. 100 for app usage in the past week, just below London and just above Jacksonville, with 103 users. Hint: One of our staffers will be ablaze if you get this wrong.

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