Enough about blogs already... I still don't understand what all the hype is about. 99% of blogs could disappear tomorrow, and 99% of Internet users would hardly notice. I agree that bloggers don't have the kind of influence that they think they have. People that write blogs are typically the people that read blogs. I can assure you that the large majority of the public still doesn't even know what a blog is, and even those that do know, like me for example, still turn to more reliable sources for news and information.

The inherent problem with a blog is the same quality that makes bloggging so popular: Anybody can do it, anytime, and they can say anything they want. It's like a chat room for people that like to write, but there is no moderator. No one validates what bloggers have to say, and without any system of checks and balances, the majority of blogger information could be ignorantly false, a biased opinion, or simply a lie. Although it seems like a good way to generate links for a website, blogging is essentially nothing more than a high tech version of a tabloid. So, sure, the Target.com information was obviously true and it might seem like a breaking news story... to bloggers. However, when it's all said and done, nobody is going to scan blogs for information because very few people (in the grand scheme of marketing) USE blogs for information. On top of that, THEN you must consider that the subset of those bloggers that actually care about Target.com selling a book about drugs or an adult oriented toy is almost non-existent. Companies react to things that will affect the bottom line, and blog rumors clearly don't.