The Target Prepaid REDcard

[BarryLincoln]

How did the Target memo (official Redbird death) story broke out on 10/13/15

It is not  important in the scheme of things (or maybe not at all), but I read today many blog reports about how the Target memo story broke out yesterday (Oct 13) and on most of them I'm not seeing any mention or reference/linking to my breaking news post; for that matter I'm seeing many bloggers implying on their posts that they were the ones to break the story and confirm Redbird’s death via the memo; others then refer to those posts as the one who broke the story. Which could have been justified were it not for the fact that I linked my story to many of these bloggers' threads as a comment (therefore personally told them) at least a couple of hours before any of them made any mention of the internal Target memo or the official death of Redbird via other confirmations.

I obviously wasn’t thinking at the time about buying time from when I published the story and they would also publish about it, so they couldn’t make claims, nor should I have. I wanted to spread the news as soon as I found out so most people would find out ASAP about it and stop being in limbo. I first linked my post about the Target memo as a comment on the Redbird thread here/Flyertalk (10/13/15 @ 6:53 pm EST) since I know that was the most popular Redbird thread. Shortly after I also posted on Reddit, DansDeals the various aforementioned blogs and others.

All this, as far as the timing of the posts and who published what first, is publicly verifiable by anyone who wants to look at the times when each of us posted regarding the official RB death via the memo, on Twitter and other third-party websites which we don’t own. Here’s my tweet about it, posted on Oct 13 at 7:05 pm EST: https://twitter.com/NoonRadar/status/654070358518140928. I obviously can’t assert that there’s no other earlier tweets/pots about the story, but I did look at when several well-known bloggers first posted on Twitter about it; it was hours after me.

Further, after I broke the story last night, someone who claimed to work at Target direct-messaged me on Twitter a couple of times asking for my email address about this news. I was reluctant at first but then gave him my email, he then shortly sent a group email to me and a bunch of popular MS bloggers, some of whom posted about the memo and official RB death later last night (10/13), others today (10/14).

This email was also sent to us last night (10/13) after I posted the story and before any of these bloggers posted about it: 8:41 pm EST (about 2 hours after I linked to my story on Flyertalk). On his group-email, the Target team member linked to my post saying among other things “I can unfortunately confirm that the memo NoonRader references here is 100% accurate”. He had seen the reports and had gone to the Target store where he works, looked around and saw the memo himself. He said he couldn’t send us the pic of the memo. Shortly after that, the pics of it started to be published on blogs. Grant (of Travel with Grant) replied to the same group email last night with a pic of the memo, just a few mins after the Target employee email.

A couple of hours after I broke the story last night, I didn’t have internet access for pretty much the rest of the night, plus I was otherwise engaged, so I saw the details of these emails this morning, which is when I published on my original/yesterday’s post the pic (a version of it) that Grant had emailed last night.

What baffles me about this (how the story was portrayed to have been broken and by whom) is that some of these bloggers are very reputable, so I would have not expected it from them. Also, I’m not really competition to them; I don’t yet have a blog per se (I posted the news on the website which I had primarily set up for other purposes), so I don’t get it. At first I wasn’t going to say much about it, then I kept seeing today blog post after blog post  to such effect, so it ticked me a bit; here I am venting about it (and setting the record straight, for what little that's worth).

I didn’t really expect to be the one scooping up the Target memo story and confirming Redbird’s death yesterday; it just bothered me that there was no confirmation still, so I went out visiting a couple of Target stores in the afternoon, probing managers about it until the second manager showed me the memo.

There's no doubt that the news about the memo and/or the memo itself would have surfaced out eventually; there's  too many people who used to MS with Redbird). However, being the first one (as far as I know) to have broken the memo story and then have published the news all over the MS forums, I'd like to think that I contributed something yesterday. So yeah, it doesn't seem nice or fair reading some bloggers implying they were the ones to break the story instead and/or pretending that they they didn't see my post about it or the email from the Target team member.

Maybe this was too much to expect on my part and not important at all for them to have referenced/mentioned my post. Maybe I will look at this tomorrow and think this is much ado about nothing. Now, however, it doesn't seem so to me, certainly not for bloggers who have staked their fame & success in part on their integrity.

In any case, RIP Redbird!

P.S. I know this is not helpful to anything we need to do moving forward after Redbird's death so I apologize in advance for having taken up space here as such.

For my part, later today I will write up a guide to closing Redbird and signing up for Serve and Bluebird, as well as other relevant info, as much as I know. There's many others who have posted about it already, I'm sure, just as there will be more to do so.

Is this a joke

[rileywiles23]

According to store manager It's killed for good according to the paper in stores with no chance of coming back

Why would they bring it back ?

[rileywiles23]

OK. Thank you noon radar for being the first person to bring us the bad news, that RC is dead.

Also why the heck do we need a whole long drawn out saga of a post ?!?!?! If you want credit - which for the life of mine, I don't understand why you care so much, about getting credit for such bad news - then just post a small sentence, saying PSA I broke the RC news first.

[David Smith]

Talk about whining.

[hvaces42]

Ahem...cough cough...i told you so.
I want the HT for calling out NoonRadar.

[Dan]

LOL

We all knew that it wasn't working and that there would likely be a memo, just like the memo I broke in May. But you didn't find me whining about sites that didn't attribute it to me. If I cried every time I didn't get a pat on the back I'd be out of tears.

But I don't make posts based on hearsay, so I went into my local Target to confirm that there was a memo firsthand before typing up my post on the subject last night, though by the time I got home FM had posted a leaked copy of it.

[ChaimMoskowitz]

How did the Target memo (official Redbird death) story broke out on 10/13/15

It is not  important in the scheme of things (or maybe not at all), but I read today many blog reports about how the Target memo story broke out yesterday (Oct 13) and on most of them I'm not seeing any mention or reference/linking to my breaking news post; for that matter I'm seeing many bloggers implying on their posts that they were the ones to break the story and confirm Redbird’s death via the memo; others then refer to those posts as the one who broke the story. Which could have been justified were it not for the fact that I linked my story to many of these bloggers' threads as a comment (therefore personally told them) at least a couple of hours before any of them made any mention of the internal Target memo or the official death of Redbird via other confirmations.

I have said in the past you have provided valuable information. This memo was on at least two private forums before you made your claim. Are you claiming you were the first to get your hands on the memo. If you want to make that claim some type of verifiable timestamp you will have to produce.

[ChaimMoskowitz]

We all knew that it wasn't working and that there would likely be a memo, just like the memo I broke in May.

Didn't a DDF member brake the news on that memo?

[joe1234]

Ahem...cough cough...i told you so.
I want the HT for calling out NoonRadar.

Thank you for a useful post. Sorry about the hating. Frustration got the best of me.

[yitrap]

Snip...

What in the flying hell??
Go home, you're drunk.

[NoonRadar]

I have said in the past you have provided valuable information. This memo was on at least two private forums before you made your claim. Are you claiming you were the first to get your hands on the memo. If you want to make that claim some type of verifiable timestamp you will have to produce.

I listed all the time stamps in the long rant/comment above, they are visible for instance on Twitter as to when I posted the news about having seen the Target memo and did the major bloggers do so there on other publicly verifiable mediums, prefacing it that I was referring to what I had seen and that I couldn't have possibly guaranteed no one had posted it before me anywhere. I don't participate on any private forums so I have no idea.

However, yeah, looking at it now after having written and posted my rant, it wasn't worth wasting your guys' time, or mine for writing it up for that matter. I'm new to MS (less then a year) so maybe my expectations of what and how people post for breaking stories is way off.

In any event, I apologize again for having taking up space here venting about it.

P.S. Dan, for what's worth, I don't regularly follow your posts, I've mostly participated and read here on this (Redbird) thread and the one where Redbird was for sale. As such I didn't know if and when you had posted about it.

[ChaimMoskowitz]

I listed all the time stamps in the long rant/comment above, they are visible for instance on Twitter as to when I posted the news about having seen the Target memo and did the major bloggers do so there on other publicly verifiable mediums, prefacing it that I was referring to what I had seen and that I couldn't have possibly guaranteed no one had posted it before me anywhere. I don't participate on any private forums so I have no idea.

However, yeah, looking at it now after having written and posted my rant, it wasn't worth wasting your guys' time, or mine for writing it up for that matter. I'm new to MS (less then a year) so maybe my expectations of what and how people post for breaking stories is way off.

In any event, I apologize again for having taking up space here venting about it.

No big deal. Everyone likes to be first and maybe/probably you were.

[hvaces42]

Doesn't mean i dont deserve the HT 

[joe1234]

Doesn't mean i dont deserve the HT 

agreed.  we all knew how sorry you really were. 

[chaimmayer]

Thank you Yitrap for not quoting the whole rant yet again but for just writing snip.

[hvaces42]

agreed.  we all knew how sorry you really were. 

I was a bit aggressive. And for that i was sorry.

[Freddie]

I don't know about the rest of you but I never even heard of Moon Radar until yesterday and now he is suddenly Woodward and Bernstein? Vos mit a mol?

[lunatic]

I don't know about the rest of you but I never even heard of Moon Radar until yesterday and now he is suddenly Woodward and Bernstein? Vos mit a mol?

He has been here

[grodnoking]

T

+1

[NoonRadar]

I don't know about the rest of you but I never even heard of Moon Radar until yesterday and now he is suddenly Woodward and Bernstein? Vos mit a mol?

I never claimed I was better then toast or that I deserved an award or something. I merely ranted about my public reporting on a specific story (Target memo) which I thought was of great important for the entire MS community, and the subsequent reporting of the story by others.

My rant was long because I wanted to explain the events and point to publicly verifiable data (such as time stamps when I posted about it). I'm aware that I'm nobody compared to the big-time bloggers and that to many people (on this forum included) nothing is true or has value until a big-time blogger says so.

Again, looking back it was not worth it in the first place, so I'm sorry I wasted your time (and mine) about it. You/others can ask the mods to delete the comments if you want, I have no problem whether they do or don't, but otherwise I can't change the fact that I already vented (wrote) about it.