Are You a Finder, Thinker or Linker?

If you are a blogger, do you fall into one of these categories, 'Finder, Thinker, Linker'? I thought I knew the answer, but now I'm not so sure. In an article at The Belmont Club by wretchard, Titled, 'The Blogosphere at War' (Hat tip Wilsonizer), it's a little difficult to figure out.

Bloggers are referred to as 'collectors' in the article. We all know how blogging works. Here is wretchard's theory:

One of the most interesting properties of the blogosphere is that its information collectors -- the bloggers -- are sometimes significantly better at gathering certain signals than professional reporters with the mainstream media. ...

In the blogosphere the Event Horizon is marked by the first post that recounts an event. ...

Observers have long noticed that blog sites tended to fall into one of three categories: the Finders, Thinkers and Linkers, and these correspond to the structure of the blogosphere. Finders are sites dedicated to capturing direct experiences. Food bloggers, reporters embedded with military units ...

Once an event has been blogged, however obscurely, it becomes potentially accessible to one of the countless eyes, both human and robotic, which pore over the Internet in search of facts to bolster or demolish an argument. ...

Amateur and professional specialists use these and a variety of other tools to scour the web looking for new trends and facts to bolster their models. Some are industry analysts; others are academics; still others are open-source intelligence gatherers. Some are amateurs. Collectively they may be called the Thinkers. They are the people who find the stories in the raw data.

One classic example of a blogger acting as a Thinker was how Flopping Aces tracked down and finally debunked the existence of AP source "Captain Jamil Hussein", who was widely quoted by the wire service as an expert on the atrocities in the Baghdad area. ...

Now we come to the Linkers. Although Flopping Aces was a widely read blogsite, its traffic alone was incapable of generating the attention to necessary to challenge the mighty Associated Press. ... Following Flopping Ace's trailblazing efforts, posts casting doubt on the existence of "Captain Jamil Hussein" began to appear at even larger sites like Instapundit and Michelle Malkin's, sites which specialize in spotting trending stories and spreading them around. These bloggers are often called the Linkers. ... (Read More)

We all know blogs that do nothing more than 'quote' what they have read at another blog or in the news. We all know blogs that simply live for trackbacks. We all know blogs that are simply for sharing knowledge or facts, like crime scene blogs, blogs on any number of other topics. There are blogs that are strictly original commentary by the author. It's a good thing to look at our blogs and how we have been using them. It's also good to decide if we want to make some changes.

I've been a Finder, Thinker and Linker at one time or another. The bottom line may be what is our 'goal' when we blog? Do we want to get lots of folks to comment? Do we want to get lots of folks to link back to us and quote us? Do we just want to move further ahead in the ecosystem? Do we want to attract lots of searches, like Google? Or do we just want to express our feelings on a subject and lay it out there? We each have to decide, but we also have to remember that what we 'want' our blog to be, may not actually end up being what our blog 'is'. Sometimes the readers decide for us.

Here's to finding, thinking and linking throughout 2007! Cheers!

Comments

[Vanishing American]

This was a thought-provoking piece, for me. I followed the link to Wretchard's original essay and I found that your take on it condensed it down to the essentials for me.
As the New Year begins, I'm giving some thought to my own blog and what I hope to accomplish with it. I don't know what 'type' of blogger I am, probably more of a thinker and linker. But my main motivation was to express my strong feelings and opinions on the burning issues of the day; I think we are living in a momentous era and just as in early American history people wrote essays and polemics and published them via broadsides, I guess I see the blog as a modern version of that, at least for me. And I think I want to sound the alarm about the peril our country is in; that's my main motive.

[freya4freedom]

Interesting stuff!

*Happy New Year* :)))!

xx

[Martin]

Hmm, fun post. I think this year I'm going to do more fun stuff on my blog too. Anyway, not sure which of these I am more, and to make matters worse, it seems to constantly be evolving. When I started out my posts looked more like wikipedia articles, with every possible related link I could dig up on the web about the topic at hand, or where I spent hours digging around obscure international news sites posting news days before it hit news cycles closer to home. This proved time-consuming however after my return to academe required I do a little reading for a grade. So my blog evolved into one where I tried to either sound off on something probably already covered a million times (but it makes me feel better), offering something in an area I might have some expertise… or lately to recycle the academic papers I spent all those countless hours researching and digging around to support instead of the aforementioned encyclopedic blog. Anyway, who knows – but great read here.

Happy New Year to you and yours! :)

- Martin

[Jack]

I'm a "stinker".

Happy New Year ... theme for this year.

A Quitter Never Wins!