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Front Page: Twins Daily’s State of the Union - 2019

John Bonnes
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John Bonnes MVP

John Bonnes

Owner
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Twins Daily experienced explosive growth in 2019, so on an irregular basis, we’ve tried to provide updates on its health and plans. We do this for a couple of reason. First and foremost, Twins Daily is a community in which a lot of people have invested time, passion and energy, and it’s important that we communicate the state of that community, and the direction it is heading. The second is that as a new media model, it’s important to be transparent so people can see that there is a market for in-depth, independent, community-driven coverage.Stories and Authors

Our front page is filled with names you would not have recognized a year ago. The number of writers, and the quantity, diversity, and quality of stories increased dramatically in 2019. The passion and skill of editor Tom Froemming and two dozen active authors has been remarkable - even during the offseason. This site has published 300 stories since the Twins were eliminated from the ALDS. That’s 100 stories per month in an offseason that has largely been devoid of good news. Perhaps the breadth and depth of that content is the good news.

 

Revenues

Those writers have also been paid better. Programmatic ad revenue rates increased considerably, and since those are passed directly to the writers, writers saw a threefold increase in pay. This also gives us hope that we can fund a redesign of our site because…

 

Traffic

Traffic went nuts. Yes, there is a market for in-depth, independent, community-driven coverage:

  • Unique Readers – 1,141,165 (up 94% from 2018)
  • Sessions – 4,493,194 (up 57% from 2018)
  • Page Views – 11,605,698 (up 34% from 2018)
The craziest fact about those numbers? On June 1st, those numbers were actually down compared to 2018. So take all those percentages and double them, and that’s what we saw over the second half of 2019. Plus, they’re increasing even more during the offseason.

 

We have an incredibly welcoming community and an ever-increasing reach. Twins Daily is not your dirty little secret any more. (So it’s OK to share it.)

 

Forums

As a result of that welcoming community, we continue to see strong interaction in our forums, and this year we welcomed several new moderators to our ranks. A successful team brought a new set of challenges to the moderation team, as did all the increased traffic. They handled an incredible amount of discussion from the 12,179 registered members of Twins Daily.

  • Registrations – +1026 (up 35% from 2018)
  • Topics –2619 (up 19% from 2018)
  • Posts – 132,373 (up 24% from 2018)
Who comes up with over 2600 baseball topics for a team in a year? (A: You do. Thanks!)

 

Blogs

Over on our blog page, you’ll find some of our next wave of writers, or just excited fans finding their voice. Beyond the stories on our front page, you found 408 additional blog entries in 2019, along with comments that both challenged, encouraged and congratulated. If you are interested in writing about baseball for a built-in audience, it remains a great place to start. If you’re interested in reading and helping along those people, stop by every day.

 

I’ll add one other point: if you think your point of view is downplayed or doesn’t receive the recognition it might deserve, show us how it’s done. Start a blog. Write a story. React to the comments. Go first-hand through the process, and take the risk, that writers do every day. With our traffic, you’re going to find an audience – for good or bad.

 

2020

Our focuses in 2020 are to accommodate, and enable the community growth we’re seeing.

 

Web Site Redesign – Our increased traffic means increased stresses on our software architecture. We will invest in a rebuild of the site, and we’ll be reaching out for suggestions to make the site better as part of that effort. Stay tuned.

 

Social Media- More and more Twins fans are finding Twins Daily from social media posts. We have always been a little haphazard on staying on top of that. That’s going to change. (We would love to have you follow us on Facebook, Twitter and email.)

 

Events – Beyond the Winter Meltdown, this October we hosted 300+ people at the ALDS Game 1 Watch Party at Brothers Bar & Grill. We want to expand to have even more watch parties, growing the “in real life” community as much as the virtual one has.

 

Partnership with Zone Coverage – Last, but not least, I'm finalizing a partnership with Zone Coverage, another local sports-based web site, to work together on business-side efforts, like local ad sales, systems development, social media and more. Doing so allows me to work half time on both sites instead of trying to find time to squeeze in work on Twins Daily outside my full time job; Twins Daily and Zone Coverage will be my new full time job.

 

This past year was a breakthrough year for Twins Daily in a number of ways, and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. We are really looking forward to seeing if the site (and the team) can keep the momentum going in 2020. You’re a big part of that, so we would love your feedback, questions and comments in the comment section. Thank you all so much from all of us at Twins Daily.

 

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Vanimal46 MVP

Vanimal46

Old-Timey Member
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One of the better decisions I’ve made in life is listening to you, John, when you advertised TD on the Power Trip Morning Show... Been here for... *checks profile* 5 years now! Not too shabby, but still not as impressive as others who have been here since the dark days of 2012. They’re the fabric of the community, and why I come back almost daily!

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tarheeltwinsfan GCL Twins

tarheeltwinsfan

Verified Member
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Thank you owners, moderators, writers, and contributors. This site is like a family of Twins fans. I hope to meet some of you at Fort Myers the week of Feb. 22nd through the 28 of Feb. I wish we had some Twins Daily hats or shirts to identify ourselves. Look for me. I'll be wearing an olive drab Second Infantry Division baseball style hat. Do the owners and writers get to sit in the press box at spring training? How about just plain ordinary posters like me?

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RochesterDave Prep Ball

RochesterDave

Verified Member
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A Huge Thank You from a thousand miles away to the contributors , moderators and all affiliated with this terrific site! Your coverage of the Twins and all of the Minor leagues is superb and it’s really appreciated here in your AAA city. Not only do I learn about future Red Wings, but who may be the next callup. I literally start and end my day reading Twins Daily, sometimes to the dismay of my GF. Keep up the great work!!

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MN_ExPat First Round Pick

MN_ExPat

Verified Member
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Wow, I had to double check myself and I've only been an official member since early 2017... feels like so much longer.   Probably since I had been lurking around the sight since roughly 2015 as well.

 

Thanks so much John and the rest of TD writers and moderators.   You guys have truly made it enjoyable and a baseball "home" to come back to on a daily basis.   I truly think my baseball day isn't complete without it.

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Penthang College Ball

Penthang

Verified Member
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I found Twins Daily from Gleeman and the Geek which I happened upon shortly after you all began putting that out. As a Twins fan in Texas I was looking for some of the talk radio aspect that you can get as a sports fan in a teams home town and there was this newish podcast thing I heard about. John would mention Twins Daily so I went to check it out. I was happy to find the outside the mainstream articles but it literally took me another year before I kept scrolling down to the GOLD that is the comment section! Having read comment sections on other sites my expectations were finding grumbling complaining and flaming. What I found was intelligent additions to the conversation…sometimes grumbly and complainy, but intelligent. It took me a little longer to register and post my first comment, and this is still the only place I post or read comments with rare exception.

I’d like to thank the owners, authors, moderators, and everyone who contribute to keep making this the great community that it is.

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