A Little Perspective On The Target-Blogger Hype

Some of you might know about Target‘s non-response to a blogger. Although the case highlights how large organizations still struggle to cope with citizen media, it also highlights the arrogance of bloggers. The thing is, Shaping Youth is a nobody – only after a lot of hype and linkage from other blogs, they’ve managed to get a very low Authority of 108 on Technorati (that means 108 blogs have lined to them in the last 6 months).

Consider the New Influentials post yesterday and the power of the link. Shaping Youth should be far from influential (although we’re sure some PR agency is waving all the blog posts now in front of a Target exec reminding them how much they need a blogger strategy). Does Target really need to react to anyone below the A List*? We’re not too sure why an organization really would bother replying to ShapingYouth emails, we’re not too sure we would.

New York Times Coverage

(* and we’re not saying we’re anywhere near that)