Today Klout debuted a sweeping revamp, meant to make that pesky social media score more accurate and their methods of calculation more transparent. That’s right: No more excuses for your underwhelming score, pal.
The new and improved Klout Score now factors in 300 new signals (as opposed to 100, previously). New metrics include various actions on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other sites. Wikipedia has also been incorporated into the score, which is important, because it allows someone like Barack Obama to rank higher than Justin Bieber, thereby making us all feel much better about the state of social media and America more generally.
Another new feature, aptly dubbed “moments,” allows you to track the most important incidents in your social media history, so maybe now you can figure out just what you did to become so influential on Fiber-Rich Vegetables and Humidifiers. That’ll also enable you to keep track of what your friends are up to, you cyberstalker.
CEO Joe Fernandez explained the changes to PandoDaily:
The goal is to make you feel less like a lab rat, less judged and put into a number and more celebrated and praised for the clever thing you wrote that resonated with so many people. Fernandez says this isn’t a retrenching, that he always intended for the score itself to just be the tip of the iceberg. “Influence is a complex thing,” he says. “We never meant for it to just be a number.”
See, now don’t you feel a little less like you’re living through sorority rush every time you see mention of the words “Klout Score”? That number is based on data, and metrics, and algorithms, and your depressingly low score is really no one’s fault but yours and also maybe quit wearing that trashy red lipstick, okay, honey?
However, we can’t resist noting this unfortunate comparison:
He describes Klout internally as the “Los Angeles of the social Web.” If you’ve never actually visited the site, you have all sorts of preconceived notions, and you probably hate it. But if you spend time there, you see it’s not such a bad place.
Mr. Fernandez might want to refrain from associating his superficially significant service with a town that is typically thought to house the country’s largest portion of bullshit artists.
