PDD Shop Talk Posts

Homegrown photo banners

Apr 24, 2019 No Comments

Once again, we’re looking for Homegrown Music Festival photo banners to rotate at the top of pages on Perfect Duluth Day. Photos of bands, friends, events or general shenanigans. Keep in mind, the photos get cropped to extreme horizontal proportions. If you want to crop ’em yourself (1135 pixels wide by 197 pixels high) and send them, super dooper. Or you can send them uncropped and I’ll do my best to make them fit.

Click here for complete submission guidelines, but the basics are: 1135 pixels wide by 197 pixels high, e-mail them to [email protected]. We’ll get them in the rotation during the Homegrown Music Festival, starting this weekend.

Read More


Photos ,

Monthly Grovel: Bonus tip about PDD Calendar map view

Apr 04, 2019 No Comments

Before delving into this month’s pitch for donations to keep the PDD Calendar chugging along, we’re taking a moment to offer a little tip on a different way to use it.

There are numerous ways to sort, filter, view and search events on the PDD Calendar. By default the calendar shows a list view in chronological order. That’s obviously the best way to look at what’s happening in the moment and scroll to the future. But there are three other view options — day, map and photo. We’ve never taken time to explain that before, because it’s always seemed obvious to us that list view is the best option. But our traffic statistics are starting to show more and more people using map view, so perhaps it’s time to mention it.

Read More


Random

Saturday Essay and Selective Focus Programming Note

Mar 16, 2019 No Comments

Like a bunch of old timers stuck in some newspaper-era, schedule-oriented, deadline-consumed mindset, the brain trust at Perfect Duluth has been locked for several years in the notion that every Friday we need to publish our Selective Focus feature and every Saturday we need to publish our Saturday Essay. No more. It was fine for a while, but we’re done with that rigid scheduling.

Read More


Random , ,

Monthly Grovel: Time to tip your servers

Mar 07, 2019 No Comments
(Enter the amount of your choice.)

It takes a lot of geek hours to keep this website going strong. So once a month we set our dignity aside and remind readers how much we appreciate their financial support.

Read More


Random

Mayor Larson knows a perfect Duluth day when she sees one

Feb 14, 2019 1 Comment

Minneapolis Southwest Journal: “Klobuchar launches 2020 campaign from Boom Island”

A parade of local Democratic officials emphasized that grit as they took turns at the podium in the lead-up Klobuchar’s speech. That included a trio of Minnesota mayors: Jacob Frey of Minneapolis, Johnathan Judd of Moorhead and Duluth Mayor Emily Larson, who described the weather conditions — temperatures in the teens under falling snow — as “a perfect Duluth day.”

Also, from WDIO-TV Eyewitness News: “Klobuchar appears on Good Morning America”

One of the supporters who spoke at the announcement was Emily Larson, mayor of Duluth. “We call this a perfect Duluth Day! Or spring, or summer,” Larson joked with the large crowd.


Random ,

Monthly Grovel: PDD Calendar holds out its hand again

Feb 07, 2019 No Comments
(Enter the amount of your choice.)

An important message from Perfect Duluth Day’s Redundant Department of Redundancy:

It takes a lot of geek hours to keep this website going strong. So once a month we set our dignity aside and remind readers how much we appreciate their financial support.

Read More


Random ,

Duluth’s Best Website

Feb 04, 2019 No Comments

In 2011 Perfect Duluth Day chose as its official slogan “Duluth’s Duluthiest Website.” It was a statement we felt pretty confident making. Maybe other Duluth websites are better, but certainly none are Duluthier.

But this week we’ve been wondering if PDD truly is Duluth’s best website. This line of thinking was prompted by the Duluth Reader weekly newspaper conducting a poll and ultimately publishing in its Jan. 31 “Best of the Northland” issue that PDD won the title of “Best Local Website.”

Read More


Random ,

Ten Years of Perfect Duluth Day on WordPress

Jan 30, 2019 1 Comment

Hunkered down at PDD World Headquarters, problem solving the switch to WordPress in 2009: Cory Fechner, Scott Lunt, Paul Lundgren and Barrett Chase.

Ten years ago — Jan. 30, 2009 — Perfect Duluth Day made the big leap to the WordPress publishing platform. Specifically, the upgrade was from Movable Type version 3.2 to WordPress version 2.8. These days PDD is on WordPress version 4.9.9. But enough nerdspeak.

Read More


Random

Monthly Grovel: PDD Calendar accepting donations

Jan 03, 2019 No Comments
(Enter the amount of your choice.)

Happy 2019, Perfect Duluth Day readers! It’s been almost ten years since PDD began selling sidebar advertising to support the development of the content you read here, and it’s been more than seven years since the PDD Calendar was launched. Over those spans of time, two things have become abundantly clear: 1) There is a strong demand for the content on PDD. 2) Advertising revenue doesn’t come close to paying for the human resources necessary to produce it.

So back in September we quietly put a donation bar on the page where event organizers submit PDD Calendar listings. Bits of funding began trickling in … $5 here, $30 there … and it’s been a big help. Now we’re reaching out to readers.

Read More


Random ,

PDD Job Opening: Sell square boxes for fun and profit

Jul 24, 2018 1 Comment

Two seasoned professionals are about to leave the Perfect Duluth Day Media Empire. Brianna Hall-Nelson is moving to Denver to further her education; Brian Timm is giving up his PDD side-hustle to focus more on his work as a kitchen and bath designer.

That means Duluth’s Duluthiest website is looking for a new person to join its crew selling the advertisements that so handsomely stack on the right column of pages on this website (or in between the content if you are looking at PDD on a smartphone).

Click here to read the full job description and find out how to apply.

Brianna has been with PDD for three years, and Brian for eight. We’ll miss having them on the precipice of our tabernacle, tickling our 50 and sharing in other inside jokes that make no sense outside the PDD siblinghood. And we look forward to meeting the newbie and developing a whole new “slanguage.”


Random

“Where in Duluth?” PDD 15th Anniversary Challenge Recap

Jun 29, 2018 4 Comments

 

Here’s a storymap that sums up the “Where in Duluth?” PDD 15th Anniversary Challenge and the winners.


Photos ,

PDD Job Opening: Assistant to the Calendar Editor

Nov 14, 2017 No Comments

How does Perfect Duluth Day publish 800 events per month in its online events calendar? Through the hard work of Tony Bennett, Jessica Morgan and the occasional intern, that’s how. Sadly, Jessica will be leaving Duluth soon, and if someone new isn’t quickly found to help Tony he’ll collapse on his laptop and weep uncontrollably.

So here’s another rare opportunity to get inside the PDD media empire and earn slightly above minimum wage with no benefits while working in pajamas. Read the full job description on the PDD employment page.


Random

Happy 14th birthday to us

Jun 29, 2017 No Comments

Today marks 14 years since Barrett Chase and Scott Lunt launched Perfect Duluth Day. Celebrate with us tonight at Sir Benedict’s Tavern on the Lake from 5 to 7 p.m. There will be live music by Woodblind and free coleslaw.

Read More


Random

Pressroom Podcast: PDD on the DNT

Jun 28, 2017 No Comments


Click the lil’ triangle above to hear a 37-minute podcast about Perfect Duluth Day on the eve of its 14th anniversary.

Duluth News Tribune Pressroom Podcast hosts Christa Lawler and Brady Slater talk with PDD grand poobah Paul Lundgren, food and drink reporter Lissa Maki, and PDD co-founder Barrett Chase (who left PDD in 2015 to become a web editor at the DNT).

Perfect Duluth Day’s 14th birthday party is Thursday, June 29, from 5-7 p.m. at Sir Benedict’s Tavern on the Lake. Free coleslaw while supplies last!


History ,

Answer eleven questions, potentially win $100

Feb 09, 2017 6 Comments

PDDMarketingWeaselEvery two years or so, the Perfect Duluth Day Marketing Weasel crawls out from behind his desk and demands a survey be conducted. The purpose is to gather information to aid in the selling of little square advertisements to fund the operation of this website. In order to make this infiltration of PDD’s blog content space seem tolerable, the survey is kept to a simple one-page, eleven-question, completely optional task with a $100 prize drawing when the survey period ends.

The survey is now complete; thanks to those who participated.

If you are offended about even being asked, we understand. All we can do is meekly apologize and point out PDD’s content is always offered completely free to readers. We don’t run pop-up ads, we don’t scramble our pages like ugly jigsaw puzzles with cheesy animations and auto-playing videos. We just run a few modest little promotional squares for businesses that are almost entirely local and reputable. (There is one ad dished out by Google Adsense that we roll our eyes at from time to time, but that’s as bad as it gets.)

Read More


Random