Our longtime business partner, Point Park University, just re-upped for another year as our title sponsor. Which means their familiar brand will continue to be part of Friday Insider, my 10 Takes columns and, of course, every opening of our app.
We're both proud and grateful to be associated with a Downtown institution of this stature.
Now, what about you?
We've got sponsorships available in all shapes and sizes, for businesses large and small, for our written content, for our podcasts and for our videos. What's more, unlike old-school advertising where you just had to trust that you were getting bang for the buck, we can track and document every single impression we create for you.
It's funny, but this used to be seen as a big drawback for us. We'd approach people about advertising with us, and they preferred print or radio or TV or even billboards because they felt those were safer. Even though online is the only way impact can be accurately, precisely tracked. Which always struck me as a little crazy. But as time's passed -- and ad execs have either figured this out or given way to those younger -- the online avenue is now seen as far more attractive than it once was, principally for that built-in accountability.
What's more, we can target your ad to a location, yet another feature that's unavailable through print, radio or TV. So if you're selling something locally that won't have much appeal to a subscriber in, say, South Dakota, everything gets adjusted accordingly.
Now's actually a really good time to reach out, and I don't care if that sounds like a sales pitch because it happens to be true. On top of some key openings we've got, we're also about to embark on the Steelers' season, then the Penguins' season, both of which bring us traffic highs on all content.
So do it. Reach out.
In fact, email me directly -- DK@DKPittsburghSports.com -- and I'll get back to you to see what our next step might be. No pressure. No pushing.
Find out why Point Park University and so many of other partners have been with us for many years. And counting.
LIVE! LIVE! LIVE!
So much of our editorial approach has always been based on doing things live. Our live game files are the most obvious, but there's now more.
Our baseball boxscores, for example, are live. Meaning that, if you keep the box open on the app or site, you'll see it self-update. It'll show you each play, and it'll track each impact. We're in the process of having these for football, and eventually for hockey, as well.
Another is our live staff Twitter feed. Access that by tapping the LIVE button on the app, or the identical button at the top right of the site.
We'll keep looking for more ways to stay connected, too, as we've always felt it's a real separator for us. When we launched, it was a separator from day-old newspaper articles, and it remains that to this day. It's important that our readership, including the commenting community, always feels in touch with events as they're happening, in addition to the more comprehensive coverage we'll offer afterward.
WEEKLY APP TIPS
Sharing ways to make your app experience even better:
• If you've left a comment here and want to be notified when there's a reply, that's now easy to do!
Atop every commenting thread, you'll see three options: TRENDING, SORT and NOTIFY. Tap NOTIFY and choose if you want to be notified of all new comments to that thread or just replies to comments you made. They'll now make their way to your device via alerts and, if you tap that alert, you'll be taken to the whole thread.
This has taken a while to get right, but it's there, and I've enjoyed having it.
• We have NFL data! Just in time for kickoff, we've activated NFL standings, the Steelers' statistics and the Steelers' schedule, all easily accessed on our team page. We're pretty proud of these packages, to be honest. Working with Adam Bertram at BoomPress, I handpicked all of the categories you see, custom-creating the packages I felt would be best-suited for our readers. From there, Adam really made these things hum. They're updated around the clock, they're clean, easy to toggle and sortable.
• 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.
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, despite none in the past two weeks now.
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 418,272, down 13.2% from last week. Our most-read original piece was Dale Lolley's coverage of the Hall of Fame Game from Canton, at 7,309. Broken down by team, articles on the Steelers brought 30.7% of our traffic, the Pirates 20.6%, and the Penguins 14.4%.
• Our new subscribers for the past week were at 27, down 17 from a week ago.
• Our new app downloads for the past week were 57 for Apple, down 14 from a week ago, and 49 for Android, down six from a week ago.
• Our podcast downloads for the past week were 104,875, up 8.2% from a week ago.
• Our YouTube video views for the past week were 120,121, down 49.3% from a week ago.
• We're at 42,119 (+73) followers on Twitter, we're at 37,108 (+9) followers on Facebook, we're at 14,589 (-2) followers on Instagram, and we're at 6,140 (+156) 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: Atlanta ranks No. 1 in users (862) among all U.S. cities west of Pittsburgh. And this city ranks No. 2 in that category.