Photo-illustration — ALEX MESSMER
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
A weekly look at what’s new, what’s coming on our site …
• We have a store!
No, for real: The brand new online DK on Pittsburgh Sports Shop offers outerwear, sweatshirts, T-shirts, caps, scarves, bags and blankets bearing the logo of the city’s fastest growing site and app. And that’s just what’s in there now. Very soon, we’ll add mugs, mouse pads, flash drives and more.
We’re doing this in conjunction with a New York-based company called Queensboro that, if one condenses the process, produces all of the above on demand in conjunction with a given merchandiser like us. They do all the manufacturing, shipping, processing, everything. They also, naturally, keep the overwhelming bulk of the money involved, but that’s fine. If anyone anywhere would want to walk around wearing our logo, we’re completely cool with that even at a zero net.
By all means, please let us know what you think, one way or the other. We’re open to suggestions.
• We’re equally proud to announce a new, all-encompassing way to buy gift subscriptions.
It’s funny, but we’ve actually done pretty good business simply from having readers email and ask us to set up gift subscriptions. Now, there’s an automated form that’s super-easy to fill-out, a single click to purchase and the reader’s choice of four custom-designed gift cards by our own Alex Messmer.
Both of these are the work of my wife, Dali, who went around the clock to have them ready for the holiday season. And in Pittsburgh, of course, that’s Light-Up Night, so the goal was met.
• The new apps are off to a wonderful start: In less than two weeks, we’ve had 2,650 downloads from Apple for iPhone/iPad platforms, 1,265 downloads from Google for Android platforms.
• We had some detailed discussions with our app developer about upgrades, with a hard focus on having the commenting function the same way it does here. We’ll also be addressing several other issues, most notably the notification system so that you’ll get an alert — if you wish — with every new entry here. It will all be in the next build.
• Our site was upgraded to a higher theme this week, and I’m guessing you wouldn’t have noticed. It’s very much worth it on this end, as far as control and flexibility of several publishing elements. The one thing you might have spotted is that we now have a favicon up there in your URL address bar, as well as when you bookmark or favorite the site. It’s just little logo, but it’s … well, let’s just say one of us was really happy to see it. Felt very official.
• I’ll be guest-hosting on 105.9 the X Monday, 3-6 p.m., while Mark Madden takes vacation.
• As of this writing at 1 a.m. Saturday, we’re at 5,929 subscriptions. We’ll be four months old tomorrow, and our full-year goal is 10,000. Our unique page views are at 1,179,636.
• Thank you so much for reading and for your support. It’s amazing how quickly this is all happening, and absolutely none of it happens without you.
November 22, 2014
Saturday Site Stuff: Introducing … our store!
by Dejan Kovacevic • Site stuff
Photo-illustration — ALEX MESSMER
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
A weekly look at what’s new, what’s coming on our site …
• We have a store!
No, for real: The brand new online DK on Pittsburgh Sports Shop offers outerwear, sweatshirts, T-shirts, caps, scarves, bags and blankets bearing the logo of the city’s fastest growing site and app. And that’s just what’s in there now. Very soon, we’ll add mugs, mouse pads, flash drives and more.
We’re doing this in conjunction with a New York-based company called Queensboro that, if one condenses the process, produces all of the above on demand in conjunction with a given merchandiser like us. They do all the manufacturing, shipping, processing, everything. They also, naturally, keep the overwhelming bulk of the money involved, but that’s fine. If anyone anywhere would want to walk around wearing our logo, we’re completely cool with that even at a zero net.
By all means, please let us know what you think, one way or the other. We’re open to suggestions.
• We’re equally proud to announce a new, all-encompassing way to buy gift subscriptions.
It’s funny, but we’ve actually done pretty good business simply from having readers email and ask us to set up gift subscriptions. Now, there’s an automated form that’s super-easy to fill-out, a single click to purchase and the reader’s choice of four custom-designed gift cards by our own Alex Messmer.
Both of these are the work of my wife, Dali, who went around the clock to have them ready for the holiday season. And in Pittsburgh, of course, that’s Light-Up Night, so the goal was met.
• The new apps are off to a wonderful start: In less than two weeks, we’ve had 2,650 downloads from Apple for iPhone/iPad platforms, 1,265 downloads from Google for Android platforms.
• We had some detailed discussions with our app developer about upgrades, with a hard focus on having the commenting function the same way it does here. We’ll also be addressing several other issues, most notably the notification system so that you’ll get an alert — if you wish — with every new entry here. It will all be in the next build.
• Our site was upgraded to a higher theme this week, and I’m guessing you wouldn’t have noticed. It’s very much worth it on this end, as far as control and flexibility of several publishing elements. The one thing you might have spotted is that we now have a favicon up there in your URL address bar, as well as when you bookmark or favorite the site. It’s just little logo, but it’s … well, let’s just say one of us was really happy to see it. Felt very official.
• I’ll be guest-hosting on 105.9 the X Monday, 3-6 p.m., while Mark Madden takes vacation.
• As of this writing at 1 a.m. Saturday, we’re at 5,929 subscriptions. We’ll be four months old tomorrow, and our full-year goal is 10,000. Our unique page views are at 1,179,636.
• Thank you so much for reading and for your support. It’s amazing how quickly this is all happening, and absolutely none of it happens without you.