Drat. I had my credit card ready, too.

I agree blogs don't stand up as tall as one would hope in people's eyes. They do have a place in marketing for customer retention and building a client base. In other ways, their influence is localized to the group that participates, without much clout to the outside world. But when something 'big' starts stirring in a blog, if those bloggers shoot out emails, it has the potential to get the word out...it all depends, case by case. One thing I do appreciate about blogs -- well the internet in general, is the very fact that anyone can set one up (with the right know-how), and share their opinion with the world on a large scale. What gets me is when a whole page of a newspaper is devoted to 3 or 4 "professional commentaries" who make a living at having an opinion. My mailman's view of politics or society is worth more to me than theirs, imho.

Blogs by themselves may or may not have weight. But compounded with other internet outlets of public opinion, surely. I think it's more of a collaberation of the internet community, ie the newsletters, websites, blogs, emails, and forums like WPW that carries weight -- thus getting Target's attention.