Just about the only thing I’ve enjoyed about Neal Coolong’s first week with our site more than his actual work has been all the newcomers that work has brought aboard.
We’ve enjoyed one of the biggest weeks in our site’s history, and it’s been easy to tell that most of it has originated from that widespread place identified by cartographers only as Steelers Nation. Exact numbers aren’t available for a little while — I’ll explain that at the end — but in terms of overall revenue, it’s been extraordinary, almost at the level of the final week of Christmas gift subscriptions.
So welcome, new Steelers fans, and make yourself at home.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t add, even though it’s been acknowledged by so many of you already, the outstanding diligence and quality of Neal’s work. He balances a love and knowledge of the game with a respect for the job with a soft touch when it comes to the human aspect. If you’re looking for a golden example, my personal favorite was one detailing a fascinating interaction between Markus Wheaton and Mike Tomlin.
The man’s been on the job only a few days. Just wait.
• Over the next month, the Pirates make two road trips: I’ll cover Aug. 11-16 in St. Louis and New York, and Matt Gajtka will cover Aug. 24-27 in Miami.
• The topic arose this week in comments about the Pirates’ ranking as a distant third on this site in terms of page views, since many have noticed — correctly — that comment counts are high on baseball pieces. The explanation, at least from what we see, is simple: Steelers fans share articles like crazy on Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Twitter. Penguins fans pretty much own Twitter. And Pirates fans … I don’t know. It’s close to impossible to get social-media action on baseball. I’m talking graveyard.
Despite this, we’ve covered the Pirates just the same as the two more popular teams and, mostly by virtue of all the games they play, we’ve invested by far the most money. We absolutely will continue to do both.
If you’re interested in bucking the trend and helping out, feel free to offer a share or like on Facebook, or an RT on Twitter, whenever any of us puts up baseball content. Believe it or not, every single one makes a real difference.
If you have questions about this, contact Anna Webb through our site’s Facebook page.
We’d love to see our baseball numbers increase.
• Speaking of Anna, she built and opened a Tumblr page for us. Feel free to tumble by.
• The name of the site is still in the process of switching over, though it’s not 100 percent yet. Our logo is all over creation and it takes time to make even a change as small as dropping one two-letter word.
• We never stop selling gift subscriptions. Click the box below:
• If you are an active-duty military member or a veteran — or if you know one — let it be known that subscriptions to this site are free. Click the box below:
As a reminder: We take care of all active-duty military and always will. Our veteran subscriptions are funded by donations. Click here if you’d like to contribute.
• If you haven’t downloaded yet, here is our app for iPhone/iPad. And the app for Android. Overall app count: 11,439 active downloads from Apple, 4,113 from Android.
• I’m not going to have hard subscriber numbers this week and probably not for another month or so, depending on when these massive changes to our commerce platform are completed. I can tell you this: Although I pledged to cover all road games once we hit 15,000 subscribers, we’re going ahead and doing that anyway, as noted above.
The specific issue, in addition to the new commerce platform, is that the past eight days have been our first with annual renewals which now mix in with the new subscriptions. And the many, many upgrades. Those are all going spectacularly, so it’s a great problem to have, but we won’t have a clear delineation for what’s what until this platform is done.
• If you can’t figure out something 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. If your issue isn’t there, email [email protected]
• Thank you, as always, for reading and for your support.
Preview of our coming-soon commenting upgrades, with a personal edit feature and little coffee-cup likes.
August 1, 2015
Saturday Site Stuff: The Coolong effect
by Dejan Kovacevic • Site stuff • Saturday site stuff
Just about the only thing I’ve enjoyed about Neal Coolong’s first week with our site more than his actual work has been all the newcomers that work has brought aboard.
We’ve enjoyed one of the biggest weeks in our site’s history, and it’s been easy to tell that most of it has originated from that widespread place identified by cartographers only as Steelers Nation. Exact numbers aren’t available for a little while — I’ll explain that at the end — but in terms of overall revenue, it’s been extraordinary, almost at the level of the final week of Christmas gift subscriptions.
So welcome, new Steelers fans, and make yourself at home.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t add, even though it’s been acknowledged by so many of you already, the outstanding diligence and quality of Neal’s work. He balances a love and knowledge of the game with a respect for the job with a soft touch when it comes to the human aspect. If you’re looking for a golden example, my personal favorite was one detailing a fascinating interaction between Markus Wheaton and Mike Tomlin.
The man’s been on the job only a few days. Just wait.
• Over the next month, the Pirates make two road trips: I’ll cover Aug. 11-16 in St. Louis and New York, and Matt Gajtka will cover Aug. 24-27 in Miami.
• The topic arose this week in comments about the Pirates’ ranking as a distant third on this site in terms of page views, since many have noticed — correctly — that comment counts are high on baseball pieces. The explanation, at least from what we see, is simple: Steelers fans share articles like crazy on Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Twitter. Penguins fans pretty much own Twitter. And Pirates fans … I don’t know. It’s close to impossible to get social-media action on baseball. I’m talking graveyard.
Despite this, we’ve covered the Pirates just the same as the two more popular teams and, mostly by virtue of all the games they play, we’ve invested by far the most money. We absolutely will continue to do both.
If you’re interested in bucking the trend and helping out, feel free to offer a share or like on Facebook, or an RT on Twitter, whenever any of us puts up baseball content. Believe it or not, every single one makes a real difference.
If you have questions about this, contact Anna Webb through our site’s Facebook page.
We’d love to see our baseball numbers increase.
• Speaking of Anna, she built and opened a Tumblr page for us. Feel free to tumble by.
• The name of the site is still in the process of switching over, though it’s not 100 percent yet. Our logo is all over creation and it takes time to make even a change as small as dropping one two-letter word.
• We never stop selling gift subscriptions. Click the box below:
• If you are an active-duty military member or a veteran — or if you know one — let it be known that subscriptions to this site are free. Click the box below:
As a reminder: We take care of all active-duty military and always will. Our veteran subscriptions are funded by donations. Click here if you’d like to contribute.
• If you haven’t downloaded yet, here is our app for iPhone/iPad. And the app for Android. Overall app count: 11,439 active downloads from Apple, 4,113 from Android.
• I’m not going to have hard subscriber numbers this week and probably not for another month or so, depending on when these massive changes to our commerce platform are completed. I can tell you this: Although I pledged to cover all road games once we hit 15,000 subscribers, we’re going ahead and doing that anyway, as noted above.
The specific issue, in addition to the new commerce platform, is that the past eight days have been our first with annual renewals which now mix in with the new subscriptions. And the many, many upgrades. Those are all going spectacularly, so it’s a great problem to have, but we won’t have a clear delineation for what’s what until this platform is done.
• If you can’t figure out something 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. If your issue isn’t there, email [email protected]
• Thank you, as always, for reading and for your support.