Earlier this month in this space, I'd promised to push to write more than ever, and I followed up this past week with one new 10 Takes column every weekday morning, covering all three of our teams.
Those were seriously satisfying, too, I've got to tell you.
I legit enjoy all aspects of multimedia -- TV, radio, podcasting, whatever -- and always will. But there's nothing, for me, that supersedes the satisfaction of a job thoroughly done at the keyboard. It feels complete. It feels official. It feels ... vital.
So I thought I'd take to this particular podium on this Saturday to share my view that we've never offered more quantity or quality to our written subscription content than we do now. I mean, I could make the case entirely on having Tom Reed on our staff, but that'd be doing a disservice to the level of originality and imagination being shown by our entire beat crew. It's taken a while, but we've veered away from the what and much more into the why, and our readers are all the better served for it.
Anyone can rewrite a boxscore. It takes skill, patience, expertise and execution to put forth an analysis that's worth your time and, of course, your subscription fee. And we've got that coming at you these days in waves. Even our straightest possible news coverage comes with something a little extra to help you learn more on the subject at hand.
We're trying some different things here, and most of them, I'm happy to say, are working. We've gone hard at podcasts for more than a year now, and the audience keeps growing and growing. (See below.) Same goes for our videos. I've believed since this venture launched that we'd always have to adjust to user habits and migrate as needed. We'll continue to do that.
But the foundation here, both from the editorial and business standpoints, remains the written word.
If someone on the outside hears or watches a show we do on Apple Podcasts or YouTube, our model's predicated on getting them to continue the process and come be part of this community. Download the free, poke around, maybe read a piece for a couple paragraphs ... until the Big Yellow Box invites the newcomer to give our premium fare a try.
Same goes for our commenting platform, by the way. It's all written word. Try as they might, no one's yet built a steady platform where the back-and-forth isn't written out. One person types, another person types back. Write, write, write.
Just thought I'd put all this in writing.
ALL THOSE CUPS!
Wild slice of data shared with me this week by one of our app developers: On our previous platform, from Oct. 2019 to Sept. 2020, we had 141,000 comments. On this new platform, from Sept. 2020 to this week -- a shorter period -- we had 240,000 comments.
We can't be certain why that is, but I'd sure like to think it's partly due to platform stability. This thing holds up well even in the busiest of times, and that wasn't the case previously.
Oh, and this, too: In the past year under the new system, we've had more than 1.5 million up-cups or down-cups! That's a lot of spillage!
MORE PODCAST RECORDS
It's been a strange couple of months on podcasting as we've slightly reduced our content volume ... but kept adding listeners.
This was a conscious call to reduce the volume, as we'd heard from a good number of people that our channel had begun to feel a little cluttered and, because of that, favorite shows were being pushed down the list. It's always uneasy to offer someone less and feel like that'll be best, but it's worked. We're down to little more than my three Daily Shot shows and our other staff content, and we yesterday blew through our previous monthly record for unique listeners at 42,436.
That's an amazing figure, considering we didn't really get serious about this until a few months ago. Thanks so much to everyone who's listened. Here's where to find us.
WEEKLY APP TIPS
Sharing ways to make your app experience even better:
• Use our team pages!
I know that should be obvious, and I further know that we've got more people using them than ever. Which is great. But I still get lots of feedback about how this story or that story on someone's favorite team was hard to find on the home page. Simple solution: Tap the Steelers, Penguins or Pirates logo on the bottom of the app and -- boom! -- there you go. The app transforms into a Steelers, Penguins or Pirates app just like that.
Within a single glance, you'll see our top story on that team, three buttons offering you always-updated standings, statistics and team schedule, and the latest live file. Keep thumbing down for every file we create on that team.
The team pages can be found on our website, similarly, on the big bar across the top.
• USE ... THE ... BLUE ... BAR! 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-Phillies game 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.
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 568, including 102 the past two weeks. (A phenomenal 100 came from a single individual!)
Thanks to everyone!
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
• I skipped Site Stuff last week because I was covering baseball in San Francisco, so all figures below will be weighed against their marks from two weeks ago.
• Our page views for the past week were 607,659, up a whopping 35.8% from two weeks ago. Our most-read original piece was my Adam Frazier trade column from San Francisco, at 11,407. Broken down by team, articles on the Pirates brought 27.7% of our traffic, the Penguins 22.1%, and the Steelers 13.5%.
• Our new subscribers for the past week were at 92, up six from two weeks ago.
• Our new app downloads for the past week were 63 for Apple, up 5 from two weeks ago, and 70 for Android, up 33 from two weeks ago.
• Our podcast downloads for the past week were 94,561, up 22.5% from two weeks ago.
• Our YouTube video views for the past week were 122,465, up 21% from two weeks ago.
• We're at 41,986 (+239) followers on Twitter, we're at 37,097 (+7) followers on Facebook, we're at 14,589 (-14) followers on Instagram, and we're at 5,595 (+491) 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: The two most common languages spoken by our app users, per Google Analytics, are, in order, English and French. Name the rest of the top five. Hint: None of them is Spanish, which placed sixth.