BL Ochman, author of the What’s Next blog, wonders why the powers that be at Bacon’s think they’re qualified to identify the most influential blogs (which are the blogs they’re going to add to their monitoring mix). So she’s issuing a challenge to the venerable, print-focused clip service: “Bacon’s: What do you say? Don’t you at least want input from bloggers about what you should track?”

Numbers of visits alone don’t determine influence, according to Ochman (and I heartily agree). She may not have the readership of, say, Wonkette, but her post on PRSA’s omission of a blogging session at their conference led to a flurry of comments in the PR corner of the blogosphere, resulting in PRSA adding a session and inviting BL to be one of the presenters.

Of course, Bacon’s can do whatever it wants (as a comment from Bob Bly to BL’s post suggests). That’s true of any organization. The New York Times could make up all of its stories (as opposed to just some of them). But what they can do and what they should do are different things. If Bacon’s is going to monitor influential blogs, there should be some criteria used to identify those blogs—or at least a definition of what they mean by “influential.”

You go, BL.