We are working on moving IheartPGH to a new home on the interwebs. Everything should look the same but just in case you are having trouble accessing the site you will know that we are making some changes behind the scenes. Comments for this blog are closed – as soon as everything is moved over you will be able to leave comments. So hold those thoughts and ideas for a few hours.
We are very excited to be moving over to Pair Networks – which is based right in Pittsburgh. Pair is an awesome company that hosts websites around the world. Pair is one of those hidden Pittsburgh gems. Not only are they experts at website hosting but they are working hard to be a good citizen of Pittsburgh and the environment. You can check out their environmental policy here.
I have started working on a new project with the folks at Pair so you will be hearing a lot more about Pair and the new project in the future.
Last week we had the opportunity to suggest some Pittsburgh neighborhoods and blogs for a post on AOL’s Rented Spaces about top housing markets in Pittsburgh and Louisville.
Because 1 blog just isn’t enough. We have set up a blog at Posterous – which is a pretty nifty tool like tumblr. Posterous lets you create a blog post by sending an email.
I wanted to follow up to yesterday’s post about this project and share some more information about what we are hoping to do.
Where did this idea come from: IheartPGH was started as a joke back in September 2005 – I didn’t even know what a blog was when I set this little website up. In the past four years this blog has become more than a website and it has been amazing to see the community of people in Pittsburgh and around the country come together to share their favorites. One of the places where the Pittsburgh community is most visible is the Steeler Nation. I will admit that when I travel, I look up the closest Steeler bars – even if it isn’t football season – I even tried to convince my mom we should have dinner at the local Steelers bar in Venice, FL when we were visitng my grandparents for easter.
So last week I was booking a plane ticket to visit an old Pittsburgh friend and I noticed that JetBlue is running this promotion All-You-Can-Jet – for $599 you can travel as many times as you want in the month of September. So I have been talking about this idea with some friends and decided to see if there was any support for the project. I sent around some emails and got a good response from some friends. I put up the post and fundraising challenge yesterday to see if there was any interest in supporting a tour of Steelers bar – I never expected to get so much support so quickly.
Supporting the Project: I know there have been some questions about this – we are not a charity – just some bloggers hoping to put together a little project to visit some Steeler Bars around the country. There are lots of great non-profit projects out there that need your support, especially in this economy. So we have tried to come up with a way for you to help us raise some money for this trip in exchange to something of value – your link on the blog roll, an IheartPGH t-shirt or tote bag or a blog post about you/your organization. If there are other ways we can help you and you can support the project – please let us know.
Where Are You Going To Go?: I am not sure yet – I think the best way to figure this out is to ask the Steeler Nation and we have already recieved so many great Steeler Bar recommendations. Depending on costs – we will use the JetBlue Pass to fly to the furthest places. If things go well – hopefully we can continue to visit Steelers bars for the entire football season. There are already some offers for iron city beers in New York City.
Tracking the Tour: Of course, there will be blog posts, tweets and photos. Maybe this could become a book or a photo book. I would love to look at getting a better camera or if we can raise some more money bringing along a cameraman to make a documentary about the Steelers Bar.
You want to do what? We want to spend each sunday in September and maybe beyond visiting with Steelers fans in Steeler bars across the county.
The Inspiration – JetBlue is offering an all-you-can-jet pass for the month of September. We have been wanting to take a tour and visit Pittsburghers around the country and this seems like the prefect opportunity to start that journey. Since September is prime football season this seems like a perfect time to find Pittsburghers at their local Steelers bars.
Why Steeler Bars and not Steelers games? There are lot more fans out there than have tickets to a Steeler game. We want to meet the Pittsburghers who celebrate together outside of Pittsburgh.
We need your help to get this trip started. So we are reaching out to the Pittsburgh community to see if there is any interest and to help sponsor the tour.
We need to raise at least $500 by August 21st so we can get our JetBlue all you can jet passes. If the tour goes well we hope to continue to visit Steelers bars in Oct and Nov too! And of course we will blog, twitter and flickr each stop! The more we can raise the more people we can bring along – would be great to bring along a photographer and camera man (maybe we can make this into a steeler bar documentary).
Whats in it for you? Here is what we are offering…
If you donate $10 – your link will be included on the IheartPGH blog roll on the front page and the links page
If you donate $25 – IheartPGH T-shirt or Tote bag and your link will be included on the IheartPGH blog roll
If you donate $30 – A blog post about you/your blog/your website on IheartPGH
If you donate $60 – IheartPGH T-shirt or Tote bag, Blog Post and your link on the IheartPGH blog roll
If you donate $100 – Blog post, link included on the IheartPGH blog roll, T-shirt, Tote Bag AND a Mrs. D Pierogi Ornament
If you donate $250 – We will wear your logo on the back of the official tour t-shirt at each stop
If you donate $500 – We will come to a Steeler Bar in your city (if we can get there via JetBlue) and buy you an Iron City Beer
UPDATE: We are using ThePoint.com to collect contributions – you only donate if we reach our goal! So if we don’t collect enough contributions to reach our goal – your card will not be charged.
Please consider making a contribution and help us spread the word! Stop by IheartPGH.com and share your ideas for the trip – favorite Steeler bars, best pierogies outside of Pittsburgh, best fan clubs – we want to know about it!
PS – we are open to other sponsor ship ideas too (no I will not tattoo your blog url on my arm) but I will wear it on a hat.