Success is a good thing, right? Well, unless you’re one of the original castmembers of Diff’rent Strokes, I suppose.
Over the past few months, Desipio has grown by leaps and bounds. You can tell that by the number of posts our articles get, the insane popularity of our Cubs GameCasts and Cubs Live! and the number of people who line up to take a whack at BC every time he writes an article.
This is a good thing.
For a little context, a run of last year’s numbers showed that we did better than I originally thought. In 2003 we had roughly 1.65 million hits. This from the Web site that started in 1997 and was lucky to get a dozen.
In 2004, things are getting impressive. We’re on a pace right now to go over six million hits for the year, but the trend is going up sharply and since we’re largely Cubs driven, if they don’t fall on their face and fall out of the race in June, we’ll likely approach nine or ten million hits for the year.
That doesn’t put us in the stratosphere with ESPN.com or spanish-yes.com or any of the other big sports ones, but it means we’re one of, if not the most popular site of our kind going. Considering we don’t have a message board like Cubstalk.com to inflate our numbers (not that there’s anything wrong with that) we’re doing rather well.
But…you knew there’d be a but. This success does not come without a price. Where Desipio used to be funded month by month with the change I could dig out of the cushions of my couch, that’s no longer the case. Our most popular features, the GameCasts and Cubs Live mean you all wear out the F5 key on your keyboard (or type “test” constantly–ok, that was just one of you, and you’re cured now) and every time you do that you take a little chip out of our allotted data transfer. When we go over (and we never even approached it before March and April) it’s an expensive proposition.
Now, I don’t want to change a thing about Desipio. If we could do a GameCast every day, we would. So instead of changing the cool things about this Web site there are two ways you can help us out.
But the fact remains that we’re not exactly a profit enterprise here, and I avoided reality as long as possible. But there could come a time when we can’t afford to do this anymore. And then where’s Jake going to hang out? Who’s going to take him in? You want that on your conscience? I didn’t think so.
First, click on those Google Ads at the top of every page when you read an article. Google pays us per click so that would help some.
Secondly, we’re going the NPR route here. I admit, I’m one of the cheap bastards who listens to NPR from time to time and never pledges any cash. So who am I to talk. But if you guys could see fit to toss a buck, or two, or five along to us every once and a while during the year it would really help. Think of it as the money you save by not having to actually pay for a newspaper any more as money you could throw our way to help us pay the freight here.
We set up an account with PayPal and you can click over and pay with Visa, MasterCard, Discover, AmEX or with PayPal if you have an account.
As always, I want to thank each and every one of our Intrepid Readers for their continued support, and once we get a little money in the kitty we can be just like PBS and give you worthless crap to go with your donations of $5, $20 and $100.
Can you imagine?
At the $1 level, Karry Ling comes over to your house and waters your lawn…with urine!
At the $5 level, Karry Ling comes over to your house and drinks all your booze and throws up on your couch!
At the $100 level, Karry Ling signs a waiver that prohibits him from within 500 yards of your home!
Oh, it’d be great.
Anyway, enough begging for cash. Let’s get back to the regular moranity.
Thanks,
Andy
That urine is all digital!
oops. How much did that just cost?
I’ll donate only if a portion of my contribution goes to get Chip Caray’s mouth and ass sewn shut.
There’s my 5 bucks. Hope it helps.
I’ll pledge $10 if my fellow posters can go 1 month without doing either of the following:
1. No Moran pic
2. Don’t tear BC a new one every time he posts an article
Okay, I made my donation, now make with the Daily Dose.
I thought I had the only site that asked for donations.
I leave for 5 minutes to take one lousy shower & someone steals my bit!!!!
Andy,
First I get cajoled into buying "Oops! They Did it Again" back in December.
Twice (One for my 11-year old nephew. Who says I’m not a responsible uncle?)
And now THIS.
Just kidding. My cheap ass is only good for a 10-spot now, but I promise to ante up next pledge drive.
This page is like The Bizarro Cub Reporter. With all due respect to Christian at CR, the refusal of you to take yourself too seriously is what makes this site a MUST for any thinking Cubs fan with a healthy sense of humor.
And I apologize in advance for using the term "thinking Cubs fan" like our favorite assclown Murph.
Keep up the good work, and stay healthy–not sure where we’d go if you croaked or something.
Go Cubs.
hey – the google ads need to be a little more attractive. San Antonie spurs tickets? Might as well just give you cash, I can’t even make myself click on those!
Our only regret is that we cannot contribute in proportion to the wonderful entertainment here at the dangling desipio.
Chip,
Since they’re begging for money, "destitute" comes to mind.
I just donated $5.00. If I give you $5.00 more can I make you take one of the tote bags that NPR sent me? How about I send you all of my unread Newsweeks?
Actually, this cub reporter’s not bad.
http://www.cubreporter.com/
BTW, what’s anime mean?
I put in $5.
I’m cool.
Why should I give to you, asshole? Are you in a wheelchair or something???
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