This site has gone to the birds; A Mystery Solved

Who’d have thought that Pigeon Man would turn out to be so popular?  While reviewing the stats for a website I noticed a huge spike in the number of downloads of an audio file.  That audio file was linked from a blog entry made during a trip to Washington D.C.  During that trip we encountered Pigeon Man.  I took a picture of him, feeding pigeons from the trunk of his car.  We talked about the event that night, and that discussion became the audio file.  All that happened a couple years ago.

Fast forward to this week, when I notice downloads of that audio file have spiked.  Normally a small number of downloads has turned into hundreds.  On a whim I Googled “Pigeon Man” and was surprised to see a familiar picture- yep, my picture of pigeon man gets top listing on Google.  A click on the picture shows the blog post and one of the nearest links is the audio file.  Mystery solved.  Almost.

Why is pigeon man so popular?

MBA Browsers, Searching for Fire Trucks, and Finding the Library of Congress

After finishing my MBA, I was given permission by almost everyone I’ve met to slack off for a bit.  Fair trade; spend almost two years working on something, take the day (or week) off.  Now I’m trying to adapt to a new pace.  Without someone else setting my due dates and timelines, I’m working on home improvement and pet projects.  The natural sensation is to feel like nothing is getting done, so I’ve decided to start using my status reports from work to track my pet projects.

One of those projects (OK, maybe sub-project is a better description) is deciding what to do with this blog.  It was originally started to record where Adam’s iPod (could have) went.  I say ‘could have’ parenthetically because I didn’t win the iPod.  So the blog morphed into a sort of “in your face” showing all the exciting places the iPod could’ve visited.  Then the blog morphed again, as the (virtual) iPod spent a lot of time working on an MBA.  That is more of a ‘What is the iPod doing’ rather than a ‘where is the iPod going’, but you get the idea and I digress.  The ultimate question is now should Adam’s iPod go on, and if so with what purpose? The stats on this blog show most of the visitors are either:
A) Reading about MBA experiences,
B) Looking for answers to class questions (for the last time- use the online library, you’ll find more than you need there and have to sort through some stuff but that is sort of the point)
C) Looking for the Library of Congress (I kid you not, but it is funny on so many levels I had to mention it)
D) Searching for Firetrucks (honest, it is listed as one of the top search terms that people entered prior to landing here- welcome, there is no fire).

So I’m left with a puzzling blogger question that I’ll leave you with for today; when the topic of your blog and the interests of your audience diverge, do you follow your audience?