There has been a great deal of discussion recently about methodologies for measuring and analyzing within the open media space. Jeremiah Owyang has a great article recapping some of the main takeaways from a recent Factiva roundtable on what to measure in the open media space.  Lately, I have been doing a lot of thinking about how we might be able to categorize blogs. The question is of prime importance because it directly impacts the manner in which you can engage with a particular blogger. It also can inform the way we can measure the effectiveness of outreach to the blogosphere.  Starting with the premise that blogs are extensions of an individual, I initially thought about using some sort of personality-profile model like Myers-Briggs, and attempting to tweak it so it can be applied to bloggers. After a bit of experimentation I felt like I was trying to fit a square peg into a circular hole, so I instead am going to list out all of the different profile attributes I have come up with, by presenting them as binary archetypes.  These categories are not mutually exclusive, nor am I going to claim that this list is complete. I’m sure there is a great degree of overlap between them, and if anyone thinks there are two categories that are redundant I’d love to hear about it in the comments section. Without further ado, here goes:

Focused vs. discursive: Is the blogger focused on a particular issue or does the blogger cover a broad range of issues? A quick glance at the subject tags (or tag cloud) for a blog could be a quick method for assessing the focus (or lack of focus) of the blog. From an outreach perspective, a focused blogger may be a much better target than a discursive blogger for the simple fact that they are far more likely to have both knowledge and expertise in the area you are interested in.

Chatterers vs. novelists: Chatterers are bloggers who post a great deal but don’t say a lot, quantitatively speaking; lecturers are bloggers who post less frequently but who say a lot. It’s my guess that lecturers are far more likely to be taken seriously when they take a stance on something that chatterers for the simple fact that there is an assumption that they have put more thought into their post. On the other hand, chatterers may be more likely to post what you are interested in for the simple fact that they don’t put as much consideration into individual posts.

Lone wolves vs. pack dogs: Some bloggers are more extroverted within the open media space than others. Pack dogs are constantly referring to other bloggers in their postings and linking to other blogs. They are the ones who are likely to be subscribed to dozens if not hundreds of RSS feeds. Lone wolves on the other hand post in isolation. They aren’t nearly as swayed by the hot topics in the blogosphere and tend to march to the beat of their own drum. Quick ways of assessing whether a blogger is a lone wolf or a pack dog might involve examining their blog roll; trackbacks; and inbound and outbound links.

Lecturers vs. moderators: Lecturers view their blogs as unidirectional channels: they are far more interested in using their blog as a soap box than engaging with their audience. Moderators, on the other hand, view their blogs as something far more akin to a community-oriented platform. Traditionally in the online world, moderators had prominent positions within online communities. It was their role to preside over the quality of discussions, participate in existing threads, and create new threads when the discussion had turned stale. Indications of whether the blogger is a lecturer or a moderator would involve analyzing the comments functionality, as well as the comment-per-post ratio.

Open vs. closed media bloggers – Open media bloggers are those who embrace the open media space. They allow users to easily Digg their articles; add them into Del.ici.ous; and forward them on to friends. Closed media bloggers, on the other hand, view their blogs as publishing platforms or content management systems. They are primarily interested in using their blog as a distribution mechanism.

Super bloggers vs. newbies – This category could be considered the result of many of the other categories. It is an attempt to assess the overall merit of the blog. It questions whether the blogger is a leader in the online space, or a follower. This assessment could be directly related to the traffic ranking of the blog; the PageRank of the blog’s home page; or the Technorati ranking. I would also be curious to know about the ratio in highly prominent blogs of inbound links to outbound links. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ratio of inbound to outbound were far higher for highly prominent blogs than vice-versa. Hopefully, this will be of some benefit. I’m looking forward to getting some feedback on this list.