For the longest time on this site, it made absolutely no sense to have an app. In theory, it would have been great to have, as most traffic comes on mobile devices now, and that has been the case for a few years. In reality, we spent six years as a free site, and the only way that worked was by loading up a bunch of ad networks on the site, with the most money coming via the desktop site. Making an app would have absolutely destroyed that business model, and while it would have probably led to more traffic, the revenue would have gone way down.
That all changed when we switched to a subscription site. We no longer had to rely on ad networks and hitting X amount of page views to make the site work. We didn’t need you viewing the site on your computer, or slowing down the mobile site with tons of ads to make the site work either. We just had to focus on providing good content, and making the site as easy for you as possible.
However, we switched to a subscription site at the start of last season, which made it difficult to achieve that second goal. We changed the look of the site, making it more user-friendly and clean, but the content took priority during the season. After the season, the Prospect Guide took priority. After that was finished, I finally had time to focus on getting an app built.
Today, the Pirates Prospects app has been released on Android, and just in time, as we’ll be starting our Spring Training coverage next week. The Apple version is coming soon, because Apple has to make everything in life difficult. You can download the app on the Play Store by searching for “Pirates Prospects” or by clicking on this link. Please give us a five star rating while you’re at it, to help spread the word about the app.
Here are the features on the app:
**The app has the ability to receive push notifications on your device any time we post a new article. You can customize these to either receive notifications for all articles, or just articles on the topics you choose (EX: Transactions, News and Rumors, First Pitch).
**You can favorite articles and read them later, even offline.
**The app uses Disqus, making it very easy to comment on articles from the app.
**A very fast platform which loads articles instantly.
**Easy to navigate categories and menus, along with a chronological listing of articles and when they were posted.
The app is free to download, although you must have a site account to access the content. You can download the app here, and if you don’t have a site account, you can sign up for a free one here (you’ll still need a subscription to access most of the content, and you can sign up for a subscription here).
If you have any issues with the app, please e-mail me at tim@piratesprospects.com and I’ll help you out.
