There are a lot of great things about my job. I can live wherever I want, set my own hours during most of the year, and normally when I’m working, it involves watching baseball and giving my analysis. But the downside to being the owner of an independent media outlet is that my job as a sports writer is only one of many jobs that I have. I’m also the webmaster, the HR department, the IT department, and countless other jobs that those big market media outlets probably have separate individual people to fill.
As a result, there are days where I have to take off from sports writing and focus on the other jobs. I haven’t done a lot of that lately, which means that today my main focus was on all of that other stuff. As a result, there are a ton of updates on the site to talk about today, with Spring Training coverage resuming tomorrow. Here are the details on the updates.
Comments
I’ve been meaning to change the comment system for some time now. Many of you who use the comments probably noticed that after so many replies in a discussion, the messages would become very narrow, making it nearly impossible to read. That was annoying for me as well, and I wanted to make a switch to Disqus. However, I wanted to make a switch that would allow you to sign in with your Pirates Prospects site account, rather than forcing people to set up a new account with Disqus. If you already have an account with Disqus, feel free to use that one.
The comment section will no longer have the old problem with replies, and it will have a lot more features. I’ll be adding a few more features in the upcoming days, but for now that’s one problem solved.
New Writers and Logo
Today I posted some new job openings on the site. I’m looking for Major League coverage, Minor League coverage, a Database Manager, and an Ad Sales Representative. I will mention that in the past we’ve had just one writer at a time covering the Pirates. We’re not just looking for one writer, and the approach is going to be much different from the previous two years, both at the Major League and Minor League levels. I’m pretty excited about the ideas I’ve got for this year, and there have already been some interesting candidates who have applied so far. I’ll be contacting people over the weekend to start the interview process.
I also posted a contest for a new site logo. I’ve had several graphics designers in the past offer to create a new logo for free. That was when I wasn’t ready to make a change. Now that I am, I decided to do a contest, with the winning logo getting a $50 prize. That’s probably not the best business approach to turn down free and then offer a paid contest, but I think the contest will be fun, and I’m interested in seeing all of the ideas that come in. The early submissions have been pretty interesting. You’ve got a week to send in your idea. I might post some of the best logos on the site for feedback.
Links and Notes
**If you haven’t ordered your copy of the 2014 Prospect Guide, you had better act fast. We’re currently on the last case of books. I say that’s the last case because I don’t think I’ll be ordering more this year. Each year I order the books in bulk through the publisher, which allows me to save several dollars per book, and I pass that savings on to you to keep the price of the book low. You’ll still be able to buy the book from the publisher after I sell my supply, but the bulk discount price won’t be included, which means you’ll be paying $25, plus $3.99 for shipping. Right now you can buy the book for $25 shipped on the products page of the site.
**Pirates Prospects Logo Contest
