Klout has it wrong

By Shana | Published: August 11, 2011

I found out today that Klout, in all of its brilliance, has decided to start counting every ounce of my web presence for its Klout score.  I resent it.  A lot.  My life is slowly turning into an alternative credit score, hereby known as a Klout score, which determines if I am cool enough for the web, (or as in the case of Spotify, if I am awesome enough for early access to something).

I’m not on the web to be cool.  As it is, I already resent the fact that our system of linking means my personality on the web, as just Shana, is totally flattened into web-grrrl.  What if one day I want to talk about cooking?  Too bad, I’m now stuck as web-grrrl.  My Klout score demands it for long term access to what I think is interesting on the web.

Problematically, I’m not web-grrrl.  I’m multifaceted – a friend, a lover, a chef in training, a philosopher on religion, a writer, an artist, a business starter, a feminist, a fashionista, a weightlifter, a yoga geekess, a humanist, someone learning to program, all sorts of things that change every day.

My true long term intents, to some degree, are only known to me.  I resent being called out and being told what they are, what my dreams are, through my score.

What if I change again, after all?

 

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  • http://www.wemakethingswork.co.uk Rayhan Rafiq Omar

    Shana, you make an incredibly valid point. So are you recommending improving Klout-like services to reflect the complexity of an individual, or are you going to delete your Klout account?

  • http://shanacarp.com/essays ShanaC

    I think I probably would recommend trying to reveal complexities.  The reason is that coming from a marketing perspective the data is kind of necessary. We’re finding out that for certain types of responses, narrowcasting is better, which means the more data that is personalized, the better.

    In a sense, it makes sense that Klout would want to add every social service on the face of the planet, but it still isn’t so reflective of the person – the number thing means what, exactly, in context of narrowcasting.

  • http://www.wemakethingswork.co.uk Rayhan Rafiq Omar

    Unrelated, but wouldn’t the same considerations apply to the SAT system, where you get a score and that has an overwhelming effect on how you are defined?

    I think someone intelligent has the opportunity to help society recognise individual strengths, but it would be a difficult marketing proposition.

  • http://www.ambitiousceo.tumblr.com/ Edward Agyeman

    Klout measures your engagement/activeness on the web. Honestly, I think it’s a great metric for you to gauge your true reach-whether it’s your followers, friends, readers etc….

  • http://fernando-gutierrez.com Fernando Gutierrez

    I guess humans try to turn everything into a competition. More so if there is money at stake, and web influence is important precisely because of that. As you, I don’t like to be analyzed, I always feel I’m more than the result. But then many times I’m guilty of not going deeper on someone and just read the result of someone-else’s analysis…

  • http://shanacarp.com/essays ShanaC

    Hi guest.  Honestly, I measure my true reach by my ability to get stuff done.  I’m not sure Klout can measure that

  • http://shanacarp.com/essays ShanaC

    Marketing is inherently difficult – it is the art and science of the subtle sell.

    And I do agree with you about the SATs.  And grades.  I’ve seen so many job applications about my SATs and grades that I’m bored of the idea…

  • http://shanacarp.com/essays ShanaC

    A part of me wonders if I overreacted in my post, primarily because of your point about going deeper into the data.

  • http://fernando-gutierrez.com Fernando Gutierrez

    I don’t think you overreacted, just raised a valid point about Klout and started a nice discussion!

  • http://blog.samgimbel.com/2011/08/30/bad-idea-of-the-week-klout/ Bad Idea of the Week: Klout « Starting Up

    [...] No, I’m not referring to its many inaccuracies, although you can read about those here, here, here, here, and here.  I’m saying that your Klout score, framed ever so beautifully in a font I [...]

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