WordPress Crossroads

Recently things have changed around my WordPress experience and I wonder if this has happened to anyone else as well?

I pressed the publish button on my first post on May 1^st 2009 and I have kept up a steady stream of posts ever since.  Three thousand- five hundred posts over seven years!

Progress was slow at first.  I kept publishing but very few people visited and I despaired about achieving any meaningful interaction.

I worked at it.  I joined in the challenges.  I hunted down bloggers with similar interests and made sure to comment regularly.

Slowly my readership and on-line relationships grew and I was making new friends.  I kept working at it.  I kept fishing for new contacts and friends and it worked very well.

Then, I admit, I grew complacent.

One by one, my blogging pals started to disappear.  I thought they would be there forever.  I hoped they had the same staying power as me.  They started to post less frequently.  Some stopped altogether without explanation.  Some stopped altogether with explanation.  Some went off in a different direction.  Some I guess just got bored by my content.  They dropped by my blogging site less frequently and they stopped leaving comments.  Some continue to comment (I am certain) only out of politeness.

OMG.  Have I got to start again?  Have my blogging pals got no stamina?  Shall I bother?  Shall I reinvent my blog and its content?  Have I run out of anything interesting to say?

I am at a crossroads!

Kim says that I should stop and do more housework!

Feedback on My Quiz and the Answers.

Some bloggers set little quizzes now and again and seem to be able to generate some interest and interaction.  My attempt, I have to tell you has sunk like a brick.

A couple of days ago I set a simple little list of questions about International Airports named after famous composers.  The response has been very disappointing.  Only one fellow blogger bothered to submit answers so I am happy to declare the winner to be:

  inavukic  – who got all the answers right:

Donetsk, Ukraine named after Prokoviev, Liverpool after John Lennon, New Orleans after Louis Armstrong, Poznan in Poland after Wieniawski, Salzburg Austria after Mozart, Warsaw Poland after Chopin, Parma Italy after Verdi, Ostrava, Czech Republic after Janacek, Munich Germany after Strauss.
As to Elvis and Prestwick airport I think it’s rumoured that the place is the only piece of UK soil where the man set foot on but hey, some say he spent a day elsewhere. 

If you haven’t read Ina’s blog drop in and pay a visit some time.

Anyway, back to quizzing.  I am trying to deal with my disappointment by trying to understand the reasons why it failed to break through the stubborn interaction barrier.  This are the possibilities that I have come up with:

1     It was too easy

2     It was too hard

3     My readers are not interested in quizzes

4     Some people don’t read the post but just press the like button in the reader

5     No prizes

So, I tried it and it didn’t work and it is back to the drawing board for me: