Greg Knauss makes a great blog post over on Kottke about referential and experiential bloggers. So, what be they? He says:
The referential blogger uses the link as his fundamental unit of currency, building posts around ideas and experiences spawned elsewhere … They can, and do, add their own information, insight and entertainment to the links they unearth — extrapolations, juxtapositions, even lengthy and personal anecdotes — but the outward direction of their focus remains their distinguishing feature.
The experiential blogger is inwardly directed, drawing entries from personal experience and opinion … They can, and do, add links to supporting or explanatory information, even unique and undercited external sources. But their motivation, their impetus, comes from a desire to supply narrative, not reference it.
Very valid points. I think when it comes to these ideas I’m a bit of both. I use other blog posts as jumping points into deeper discussions on my own blog, these blog posts are catalysts for thought reactions but I also have linking posts that send people away from my site. “Nothing to see here today, go here and play instead.” I’d actually think a lot of bloggers are a mix of both types more than excusively one or the other. Still it’s a good observation by Greg on the various behavioural types of bloggers. I mostly started off as a referential blogger using my blog as link log and added some comments then over time I used it to express ideas I was thinking about and as Greg outlined, added links more as a way of enforcing my thoughts and ideas. I’ve noticed some people start like this whereas some have started as experiential and evolved into referential blogs.
