It seems that there are two sides in blogging, coming more and more apart.

1. On one side we have expert bloggers writing quality content and explaining how to do stuff (this starts with SEO blogs, of course, but it applies to all topics and niches). These bloggers write articles based on their own experience, and their own trial and error facts.

2. On the other side we have bloggers who report what happened lately in the blogosphere and give us thousands of links ((exagerration with purpose of emphasizing ). It’s good to have 4 or 5 reporters in the beginning to quickly find out what happened and where, but soon you’ll learn all the places they visit to find info. And then you’ll bookmark the source, and not the intermediary.

Sure, I do like to read a post telling me what happened to Google and be provided with 10 links on that subject. It spares me the time to find all 10 links. If the reporter is good at what he/she is doing, maybe I’ll add the feed to my reader. It’s good to wake up in the morning and read 2-3 reports. Actually, I have my Netvibes account separated into many categories. One of them is A-class reporters.

A-class and B-class are the importance and trustworthiness levels. A-class are always the best and regularly updated sources of news. B-class are wider in topics range and not so often updated.

You’ll probably never see a reporter writing something out of his/her own experience. Why? Because they’re good at reporting. And people appreciate this. An expert however, will be seen reporting stuff when he/she is out of inspiration. Experts often report things on a rate of 10/1 (10 full articles/1 report).

A common mistake I’ve seen, and fallen into one of these traps, is reporting on other bloggers progress. No. Report on your own progress. Such as “this month I’ve reached 100 articles” or “this month I’ve reached 300 visitors per day“.

As a conclusion, all experts started as reporters, but along the way, they become experts. Reporters are good for beginners and advanced bloggers. They report what experts do. Or what is going on on the web.