Site Stuff: Our college, military drives both could use kickstart

Big drives can be big fun when they start. And then, they quiet down.

We've got two concurrent campaigns going on our site -- one to match 2,000 military veterans to free one-year subscriptions, another to do likewise with 1,000 total Pitt and Penn State students -- and to be blunt, they've both hit slumps that'd make Gregory Polanco blush.

The military drive, which we've been doing for years, is currently at 627. That's just shy of the 651 requested by veterans in 2021, so we're close enough on matching those up. But more important, that first figure's far from the pace needed to achieve the goal -- we sold a total of four in the past week -- since we obviously need 1,373 with a little more than three months left.

Not that we'd ever leave a veteran hanging. We'll honor every single request, with or without the contributions. But it'll take processing time, etc., on our end, and that's where the whole thing gets challenging.

It's simple: If you'd like to contribute, email me directly -- DK@DKPittsburghSports.com -- and, after you hear my thanks, Dali will reach out with the rest.

As for colleges, that, too, had a burst -- we've sold 78 for Penn State, 41 for Pitt -- but they've both hit slumps, too, on the way to seeing which school's alumni will come up with 500 first.

This one's just as simple: If you'd like to contribute, email me directly -- DK@DKPittsburghSports.com -- and, after you hear my thanks, Dali will reach out with the rest.

The cost of either one of these is $20 each. You can contribute one, or as many as you'd like. Every contribution counts, large and small, and they're all appreciated equally.

Thanks again to everyone who's already participated!

TELLING OUR TALE

One thing you'll see a lot from us on the outside is an emphasis on telling our own tale.

There's a thin line between promoting your own company and boasting, and I'm positive I've erred on the side of not doing enough on this front for far too long. That's changing in a big way. We're building a campaign aimed at letting people know who we are, what we do, why we do it and, yeah, about you and the extraordinary community you've built here.

One example is a #DKPS Fun Fact I've been crafting every weekday on Twitter and Facebook ...

... but there'll be much more.

Think of it as Site Stuff for people who aren't yet subscribed. Some numbers get shared, some of our approaches to coverage, some news about what we plan to do. All of it'll always be here first, but this can maybe generate extra interest.

Never hurts to take control of that sort of thing.

ALL TEAMS AT ONCE!

Today marks the beginning of the mercifully brief period in which all three of our teams -- and both major colleges -- are active. And I say today because the Penguins are opening development camp in Cranberry this morning.

That can put a strain on a staff this small, especially when travel's involved, and Alex Stumpf, of course, is on the road with the Pirates in Miami. The reason for that is that there's almost always multiple someones who aren't covering events at a given time who can help out behind the scenes, while that can't be the case when we're all covering something. Myself, I'll be doing the Steelers game tomorrow, the Penguins' scrimmage Tuesday, Steelers practices after that, the Steelers game next Sunday, then more Pirates when they come home.

Not complaining. Just glad baseball will be done soon, on this count alone.

WEEKLY APP TIPS

• Add an avatar! Spice the place up a little! Go to your profile at the top left corner of the home page, then tap the camera icon just under the words MY ACCOUNT. Import a pic of your choice, and that's that! 

• Our developers at BoomPress performed three significant upgrades to the commenting platform, one addressing the speed of some of our bigger threads, like the one we'll have again for Steelers-Raiders tomorrow, another addressing comments disappearing and, new just yesterday, another addressing all the strange vertical spaces we had between paragraphs. It's now one-space-fits-all.

• We have NFL data! Also just in time for football, 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. They're updated around the clock, they're clean, easy to toggle and sortable.

BACK TO BUSINESS

• Our page views for the past week were 671,123, our biggest total since early 2020 and up 6.8% from last week. Our most-read original piece was Dale Lolley's update on Stephon Tuitt's injury status, at 14,888. Broken down by team, articles on the Steelers brought 26.3% of our traffic, the Pirates 9.7%, Penn State 8.5%, the Penguins 7.9%, and Pitt 2.4%. If a college has ever beaten out one of the big three before this week, I can't recall it.

• Our new subscribers for the past week were at 163, up 15 from a week ago.

• Our new app downloads for the past week were 119 for Apple, up 31 from a week ago, and 96 for Android, up 21 from a week ago.

• Our podcast downloads for the past week were 145,128, up 11% from a week ago.

• Our YouTube video views for the past week were 99,937, up 7% from a week ago.

• We're at 42,449 (+53) followers on Twitter, we're at 37,160 (+9) followers on Facebook, we're at 14,560 (-6) followers on Instagram, and we're at 7,821 (+353) followers on YouTube. These figures are just for our official company accounts on each of those platforms, not including any of our individual accounts.

• 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, part of the United States but seldom seen on our lists at all, made a timely appearance this past week with 114 readers. The previous week, it had 15.