As best I can tell, there are primarily three types of bloggers:

  1. Innovators. These are the really smart and creative folks who have ideas sprouting like dandelions and just pluck one up and give it a puff of digital wind each day.
  2. Harvesters. These are the bloggers who drive their combine over the blogosphere every day (or hour) and pass on whatever crops they find to be tasty. Their primary task is pointing to other people’s posts.
  3. Personalizers. These are the people who share their lives for anyone who is interested.

I have two observations about these categories:

  1. The appeal for each of these types of bloggers is that they save their readers time. The innovator saves the reader from having to think of something creative himself and lets him expend his mental energy critiquing what he reads. The harvester saves the reader search time by giving her a central location to access relevant information. If the harvester is good, the reader may not feel the need to go elsewhere. The personalizer saves the reader from having to call or e-mail to find out what is happening in the blogger’s life. If the reader does not know the blogger personally, he can enjoy following from a distance and commenting when he pleases.
  2. Ideally, a blogger should be all three types. This is not a universal necessity, but in general, a blog devoted to innovation should include a dash of harvesting and a dash of personalizing. The same goes for the other two types. Having all three components keeps a blogger interesting (because he doesn’t just repeat what he hears), humble (because he recognizes other people have good ideas), and real (because he doesn’t just sit in front of a computer all day…at least he shouldn’t).