The Key Play's 2014 Metrics, 2015 State of TKP and TELL-a-thon 2.0

It's the beginning of January; that time of year when I share traffic and usage stats with everyone and deliver a State of TKP. Traffic wise, The Key Play had an excellent 2014, at least when compared to 2013. Thekeyplay.com served up over 10 million pageviews in 2014. It almost doubled the 5.9 million mark set in 2013. As a reminder, the first full year TKP was online was 2011, and it delivered just 856,892 pages.

An editorial goal last year was to make sure there was something fresh to read on the website each day. There were probably a handful of days when there wasn't, but The Key Play columnists and reporters published 515 front-page articles in 2014. That's an average of 1.4 articles a day. French, Brian, Mason, Alex, Mark, BilldozerVT, Pierson, TheFifthFuller, Beyer and Joel busted their butts to make that happen. Mark Umansky and Michael Shroyer did an excellent job snapping game photos to accompany posts.

The Key Play community started 2,771 (7.6 / day) new forum topics in 2014 and posted 130,746 comments (358 / day!). Members cast 439,133 votes and just 10,029 were down votes (2.2%). coldblood4vt handed out 11,748 up votes and Blue Collar Hokie upvoted 10,509 times. I won't share the down vote devotees (and I hope this doesn't turn into a conversation about voting). 880 new people registered for an account on the website.

Quantcast provides some very interesting metrics on visitor frequency. Quantcast defines an addict as a user that visits a website (in this case Thekeyplay.com) 30 or more times a month, a regular as someone who visits between 2 and 29 times in a given month and a passer-by as someone who visits just once in a month.

In any given month Quantcast reports 50,000 - 60,000 unique people visit TKP. That means about 2,000 - 2,400 of you (addicts) account for 54% of visits to Thekeyplay.com. That number correlates strongly to the number of active registered members, but there are still some hardcore lurkers. Meanwhile, 22,000 - 26,000 (regulars) account for 44% of visits. Passer-bys don't interest me much because TKP was never built to be a content firehose. I didn't want people to visit, hang out for a few seconds and leave because they saw something buzzworthy on Facebook. I wanted to build a community centered around intelligent users and in-depth, analytical and sometimes humorous content. I believe what we publish is second-to-none, and an average visit lasts 05:28. You all are either engaged by the articles written or the top-notch community. Either way, it's a good thing.

I don't know how to quantify how punny or memey threads got last year, but they are out of control in the best, most brilliant, I-sincerely-appreciate-all-the-laughs-every-day way.

Over the last few months I gave serious thought to transitioning TKP into a premium / subscription based website. I am not the type of person who does something half-hearted. (Editing and managing TKP has become a full-time job, which makes balancing the full-time job that keeps me wearing gym shorts in my warm house during winter and my family a challenge at times). The goal was always for The Key Play to be the best Virginia Tech Hokies football and athletics community online. Money helps make that happen. More money, more reporters, more columnists, more articles, more content and a better served readership. However, I overlooked how going premium or freemium might change the culture of the community, possibly / probably for the worse. A lot of the feedback I received hit on that idea, especially how any sort of paywall might make TKP innaccessable to new members including students.

This is part of a response from HorseOnATreadmill (who forked over $100 last February and signed up for a recurring $10 / month with PayPal) to me when I pointed out only a small percentage of users financially supported TKP in one way or another, and I didn't think it was fair to the folks already giving to pick up the slack.

I wanted to comment on this because I think both you and GuitarMan alluded to it. Personally, when I donate, I don't think of this at all. The way I see it, the internet is better with TheKeyPlay being both on it and free. When I donate, I don't think of the other hardcore members that will benefit at all, it's that the landscape of college football is better when teams have an active community centered around journalistic coverage. Since I think what you produce is as good as any team-oriented site in the country, keeping it free for the random internet passerby is what will build popularity. I used to go to scout.com for college football content, but every time I clicked on an article that sounded remotely interesting I would get hit by a paywall. Same with Rivals, to an extent. Guess which sites I rarely visit now?

There were similar sentiments in that thread. I don't want that to change. I love the culture here, and don't want to mess with it. Culture is king. I also want TKP to be the first website that a class of 2019 Hokie visits before walking across the drillfield to class. (Or really the one (s)he reads instead of paying attention in class.) With all that said, everything will remain as is for 2015. TKP will remain free.

My plan for The Key Play in 2015 is to: 1) grow non-revenue sports coverage; 2) expand existing football, basketball and high school recruiting coverage; 3) find a couple of new voices to add to TKP's already diverse offering (if you're interested); 4) update TKP's technology stack (beginning with an improved search experience); and 5) be TKP's best year yet.

I need your help to keep The Key Play online and, more importantly, growing. Any contribution, whatever you're generous enough to give, will help make TKP a community that can better serve you.

1. Click the PayPal button below to financially support TKP. (Ignore this if you've donated within the last calendar year, and thank you.) If you really want to be an All-American, make it a recurring donation. If all 50,000 - 60,000 readers donated $1 a month, TKP would have the resources to tell you what Whit had for breakfast each morning and what dance moves Frank's been practicing at night (the coverage would be that in-depth). If you're a registered user, you'll get a gold star next to your user name. If you're a lurker, you'll get a sincere thank you email.

2. If you own or represent a business that wants to reach an affluent, educated, engaged audience that loves college football, and is crazy about the Hokies, check out TKP's sponsorship and advertising options.

3. Organic growth has been a key to TKP's success. A good deal of Hokie Nation knows about the website, but many folks do not. I need your help to reach those people who don't have Twitter or Facebook, who have never seen one of French's film reviews, or who are stepping foot on campus for the first time. Would you tell a friend or friends about the website the next time you're discussing the Hokies?

4. Buy a t-shirt or pint glass from TKP's online store.

5. Please take our 2015 reader survey below.

If you have any feedback, suggestions or comments, by all means please leave them below. 2015 will be The Key Play's best year yet.