Photo: DEJAN KOVACEVIC Photo-illustration: DALI KOVACEVIC
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
BRADENTON, Fla. — A weekly look at what’s new, what’s coming on our site …
• Our server is about to be our former server. And this is awesome.
We’ll be migrating the entire site tonight to a new, independent server that will be able to suit not only the current needs but also the needs for traffic the likes of which we’ll never actually reach. That’s the kind of testing that’s been done on this, using ‘heavy loads,’ as the techies call them.
This has been overdue, as many of you have experienced, but other steps needed to be taken.
And once this migration is complete, a whole lot of other improvements will be possible and forthcoming. More on that in the near future. Suffice it to say for now that our primary goal in Year 1 is to apply subscription revenue toward building up the site to a first-class level. Work remains.
• Not sure if this was good or embarrassing or both, but when I mentioned last week that anyone can upgrade their subscription levels at any point — simply email us at [email protected] — I didn’t expect much reaction at all. Only because I thought everyone would know this.
Oops.
Well, the reaction was swift and strong, as we were hit all week with upgrade requests. Which means a) that’s great, and thank you, and b) we could have been a whole lot clearer about this a long time ago.
Trying to clarify again: If you have a monthly plan and would rather go annual or Lunatic (three-year), just email us and say so. Same goes if you’re annual and would rather go Lunatic. We’ll work with each request individually to get it right.
• It’s always nice to hear from other journalists watching how this endeavor goes, even more so when they offer encouragement, as two big baseball names — Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal and MLB.com’s Richard Justice — did this week while stopping at Pirate City. I don’t think of this site as a science experiment, but I do appreciate that others would like to see it succeed because they believe in this profession.
• We began selling baseball gift subscriptions this week, meaning packages aimed at offering Pirates fans a full year of coverage right from the opening of spring training. A custom baseball-style card will be sent to all gift recipients, and we’ll be sure, as with all subscribers, that they get all the help they need using the site and the app.
Click the big box below for all our gift subscription options:
• The app count: 4,091 active downloads from Apple for iPhone/iPad platforms, 1,704 from Google for Android platforms. A nice week for both, with 100 total.
• Our total traffic for January — as counted in page views by Google Analytics, the industry leader in this area — was 499,595. I kid you not, there are advertisers that will only work with sites that generate a half-million or more, so maybe I’ve got to tick off Capitals fans just a little more often.
In all seriousness, the Wednesday column on Alexander Ovechkin’s slash and the Penguins’ power play was the site’s most-visited item in nearly two months.
• As of this writing at 10 p.m. Friday, we’re at 8,179 subscriptions. We’re seven months old on Monday, and our stated goal for the first full year was 10,000. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that business had slowed, but my trip to Western Canada and now this one to Bradenton have either sparked or coincided with a very nice resurgence. I’d like to think the trips were a factor.
• App alerts to new major pieces are going out before anything on social media. As much as 15-20 minutes earlier, actually. Subscribers come first.
• If you can’t figure something out related to our site or app, please check our Support and App Support pages. About 99 percent of the questions we get can be answered right there. But if your issue isn’t there, email [email protected]
• Almost every night, right after midnight, I can’t help but notice on our big dashboard that we get a handful of page views from Kazakhstan. Which is really neat because, in going out on a limb, I’m assuming that’s a U.S. soldier on duty.
If so, thanks for everything and, above all, be safe.
• Thank you, too, for reading and for your support.
February 21, 2015
Saturday site stuff: New server!
by Dejan Kovacevic • Site stuff • Saturday site stuff
Photo: DEJAN KOVACEVIC Photo-illustration: DALI KOVACEVIC
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
BRADENTON, Fla. — A weekly look at what’s new, what’s coming on our site …
• Our server is about to be our former server. And this is awesome.
We’ll be migrating the entire site tonight to a new, independent server that will be able to suit not only the current needs but also the needs for traffic the likes of which we’ll never actually reach. That’s the kind of testing that’s been done on this, using ‘heavy loads,’ as the techies call them.
This has been overdue, as many of you have experienced, but other steps needed to be taken.
And once this migration is complete, a whole lot of other improvements will be possible and forthcoming. More on that in the near future. Suffice it to say for now that our primary goal in Year 1 is to apply subscription revenue toward building up the site to a first-class level. Work remains.
• Not sure if this was good or embarrassing or both, but when I mentioned last week that anyone can upgrade their subscription levels at any point — simply email us at [email protected] — I didn’t expect much reaction at all. Only because I thought everyone would know this.
Oops.
Well, the reaction was swift and strong, as we were hit all week with upgrade requests. Which means a) that’s great, and thank you, and b) we could have been a whole lot clearer about this a long time ago.
Trying to clarify again: If you have a monthly plan and would rather go annual or Lunatic (three-year), just email us and say so. Same goes if you’re annual and would rather go Lunatic. We’ll work with each request individually to get it right.
• It’s always nice to hear from other journalists watching how this endeavor goes, even more so when they offer encouragement, as two big baseball names — Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal and MLB.com’s Richard Justice — did this week while stopping at Pirate City. I don’t think of this site as a science experiment, but I do appreciate that others would like to see it succeed because they believe in this profession.
• We began selling baseball gift subscriptions this week, meaning packages aimed at offering Pirates fans a full year of coverage right from the opening of spring training. A custom baseball-style card will be sent to all gift recipients, and we’ll be sure, as with all subscribers, that they get all the help they need using the site and the app.
Click the big box below for all our gift subscription options:
• The app count: 4,091 active downloads from Apple for iPhone/iPad platforms, 1,704 from Google for Android platforms. A nice week for both, with 100 total.
• Our total traffic for January — as counted in page views by Google Analytics, the industry leader in this area — was 499,595. I kid you not, there are advertisers that will only work with sites that generate a half-million or more, so maybe I’ve got to tick off Capitals fans just a little more often.
In all seriousness, the Wednesday column on Alexander Ovechkin’s slash and the Penguins’ power play was the site’s most-visited item in nearly two months.
• As of this writing at 10 p.m. Friday, we’re at 8,179 subscriptions. We’re seven months old on Monday, and our stated goal for the first full year was 10,000. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that business had slowed, but my trip to Western Canada and now this one to Bradenton have either sparked or coincided with a very nice resurgence. I’d like to think the trips were a factor.
• App alerts to new major pieces are going out before anything on social media. As much as 15-20 minutes earlier, actually. Subscribers come first.
• If you can’t figure something out related to our site or app, please check our Support and App Support pages. About 99 percent of the questions we get can be answered right there. But if your issue isn’t there, email [email protected]
• Almost every night, right after midnight, I can’t help but notice on our big dashboard that we get a handful of page views from Kazakhstan. Which is really neat because, in going out on a limb, I’m assuming that’s a U.S. soldier on duty.
If so, thanks for everything and, above all, be safe.
• Thank you, too, for reading and for your support.