History of the QotD, Part I

I doubt if anyone remembers, but the Question of the Day began on AOL Instant Messenger or AIM, as it's now known. I had, as happens occasionally, given up on the concept of an away/status message, since mine were rarely correct and I didn't really have the patience or interest to change that fact. So, I decided to inject some life into my away messages with the QotD.

The AIM QotDs worked well because, at the time, I communicated with a lot of people specifically through AIM anyhow, so it wasn't much of a stretch for those same people to answer questions through AIM. There were problems, though, like a word limit on away messages and the impermanence of AIM away messages in an era where very little information is actually discarded.

So, I moved the QotD to a blog format on my MySpace blog. I even posted all of the AIM QotDs on one lazy blogging day. The MySpace QotDs worked reasonably well, though I lost a good chunk of my non-habitual responders in the switch. The QotD, for the roughly year and a half that it lived on MySpace, evolved into what was essentially a message board for our small group of fantasy players, et. al.

After about a year hiatus, the QotD phoenixed its way into this blog, which was started, in part, as an example for my students who have since been required to blog. At the time, I revived the QotD without much though, assuming it would be at least as successful as its predecessor on MySpace.

I was wrong. In the time that I've been writing this blog, the QotD has pretty much become a way for Matthew, Bryan, and I to keep in touch.

The thing is: we have cell phones and email and stuff, so that's not really the purpose of the QotD. The purpose was to create a larger community, which it did on AIM and MySpace. At this point, I'm willing to forego the QotD's original purpose, since nothing I seem to do has much effect towards a return. Earlier in my life, I would have been more angry and adamant about my readers responding. There was even a time when I would have considered it stealing if they didn't, though I can't seem to find that time. But, now I suppose I've calmed down about it.

I'm not ready to completely 86 the QotD, but I am willing to evolve it. With that in mind, today's QotD is two-fold:

QotDs:

1. Why don't you respond to the QotD?
   

   My take: I do.
   

2. Would you be more interested in a different blog feature?
   

   My take: Perhaps. I've been kicking around ideas, like Event of the Week, Quote of Week, Question of the Week (of course), Stat of the Week, etc. Each feature could have a specific day, like Event of the Week would probably be a Monday feature to warn you of upcoming cool stuff. The downside, from my perspective, is that these new features wouldn't necessarily be interactive, but from my best estimation, 50% of my readership isn't interactive anyhow.

Let me know what you'd be interested in seeing.