Lots and lots happening here at 224 Fifth Avenue, Downtown, all at once, and all at the busiest intersection of our city's sports calendar.
But hey, that's why they call it work.
Addressing it all via bullets:
• The new payment platform, a month in the making, finally was completed Thursday. It's up and running. If your subscription expired while we were switching platforms -- and we asked many of you to hang on until we were all clear -- this is our new subscribe page. Make sure you're logged in, tap on the link, and thumb down to the bottom for the SUBSCRIBE button to buy/renew at the monthly or annual level.
• We also have our new pages completed for student subscriptions and senior subscriptions. If you're buying/renewing either, make sure you're logged in, tap on the appropriate link, and tap the big SUBSCRIBE button. These are all annual.
• These stupid jumping ads ... they're the byproduct of auto-refreshing ads, which will be good for revenue once they're functional. At the moment, though, all they do is annoy. I'm told the stabilizing of these ads will be complete by next Friday. I'm in talks with both parties that are on this job. I'm hoping for the best. I hate them, too.
• The upgraded Feeds are so close. Truth is, if we'd pushed, we could've had them up yesterday in time for this Site Stuff. But our BoomPress developers wisely held off so that any hiccups wouldn't affect the Steelers-Browns live file this Monday. There's a good chance, then, it'll be up a day or two after that. I've gone through the testing on this myself. It's very cool. Worth the wait. (The upgraded comments won't launch at the same time. It'll be a one-at-a-time thing.)
• An unwanted new problem arose over the past 48 hours with the back button upon closing out a comments screen. The developers were on this as of late last night. It won't take long to fix.
It's all for the better. We'll emerge that much stronger for all of these. Just updating on where they are, as well as expressing appreciation for your patience and support.
NEXT HIRE'S FOR BASEBALL
It's football season, soon to be hockey season, and we're hiring for ... baseball.
As in full-time reporter on baseball.
Yeah, that's how this goes. A lot like the sports themselves, the offseason's the best time to expand/assess the pool of available applicants for a given opening. So we'll be spending these next 2-3 months reviewing resumes, interviewing reporters and so forth. That way, Alex Stumpf will move into a new role of enterprise/feature writing.
MILITARY DRIVE: 334
Our annual Military Drive, aimed at connecting 1,000 veterans of our Armed Forces to a one-year subscription, saw 8 sold to raise the total to 334. We're still in good shape toward the goal of getting it done by Veterans Day Nov. 11, but the pace will need to pick up soon for that.
Here's how it works: We sell a military subscription for $20, covering a full year for any veteran. That's one-third of the regular price. However many you'd wish to donate, even if it's just one, email me directly at DK@DKPittsburghSports.com, and Dali will do the processing.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our page-view numbers for the past week were 847,643, with 36,448 different users over the most recent full seven-day span. Our most-read original piece was my main column from the Steelers' loss to the 49ers, at 21,093. The Steelers were accounted for 31.8% of our views, the Pirates 17.6%, the Penguins 9.4%, Penn State 2.7%, and Pitt 1.8%.
• On the multimedia front, our podcast downloads for the past week were 135,142 and our YouTube video views for the past week were 147,212.
• Our company social media accounts are at 50,964 followers on X, 39,661 on Facebook, 24,568 on YouTube, 14,871 on Instagram ... and already 2,434 on the new Threads app!
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email: Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• We're often asked about our HQ/shop merch being available online, and yes, it's right here.
• Anything you need, email: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com