Much Ado about Klout

Recent changes to Klout's algorithm, as well as revelations about some of its practices, have generated a powerful backlash against the company and its business model, as well as the tool itself. This post provides access to a set of pieces that provide a comprehensive look inside the issues, in addition to offering insights about the utility of all the furor.

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If you follow social media, at least to some degree, you have probably heard of Klout and similar utilities (e.g., Kred, PROSkore, PeerIndex, Twitalyzer) that attempt to measure online influence. You may have also heard about the recent controversies over the change in Klout’s algorithm (and the perceived lack of transparency about what it measures), the automatic creation of profiles (even for minors), the difficulty of removing one’s Klout profile, and other questionable practices. The cyberchatter has been passionate, to say the least.

It’s tough to keep up with the flurry of blog posts and comments, so I thought it might be useful to collect and share a representative set of pieces for folks who want to understand what the fuss is all about but don’t know where to start or don’t have time to go digging for information themselves.

Listed below (in chronological order) are some of the posts that have been published by Social Media Today, where Klout is still a trending topic. Many of these posts provide links to other pieces, and almost all of them have generated some powerful (sometimes heated) discussions. Read as a whole, they provide a good sense of how the general conversation has evolved, as well as a variety of perspectives and insights on specific issues.

• Klout Responds to Questions and Critics (Oct. 29)
• Delete Your Klout Profile Now! (Nov. 9)
• Lies, Damned Lies and Klout Lies (Nov. 17)
• Why I Deleted My Klout Profile (Nov. 20)
• Klout CEO Joe Fernandez Responds to Critics (Nov. 21)
• Klout is not all about “Me Myself and I” [Opinion] (Nov. 25)
• Five Questions Klout Can't Answer (Nov. 29)
• Social Media Cries a River: Thank You, Klout (Nov. 30)

Please add a comment if you’d like to suggest
another good piece about the “Klout Kontroversies”

Although I’ve been aware of Klout for a long time, I haven’t followed the measurement tool or the company all that closely. In general I prefer to take a "wait and see" approach to new tools and platforms rather than be among the earliest adopters. I read and observe and evaluate before I engage. I was extremely dubious about and dismissive of Klout for a long time. After reading an interview with the founder and CEO, Joe Fernandez (I think it was in this Forbes article) last summer, my view softened, and I put a little effort into fleshing out my profile by adding some accounts. Since Klout still can't come close to accurately measuring my online influence for a variety of reasons (e.g., it doesn’t include TypePad blogs or most LinkedIn activity), I still can’t put much stock in it.

Because I haven’t followed Klout that closely, I feel as if I've come into the middle of the movie with respect to the recent controversies. At the same time, given my own experience and perspective, I can’t help but wonder why the reaction from some quarters has been so vitriolic. I know there are a number of folks who've been critical of Klout all along, and the latest stumbles have probably served as kind of an "AHA - Gotcha!" moment. I get that their sense of vindication has led to ever-more impassioned responses. It’s the people who seem to feel they’ve been duped or betrayed by Klout that I don’t get. I'm frankly surprised anyone – especially social media experts – has ever considered it to be a valid or reliable measure of influence. Klout’s weaknesses have always been pretty evident to me. It seems these people had drunk the Klout Kool-Aid – loudly and in public – and now they have to do some serious back pedaling. Rather than admitting they were wrong and reflecting on that, they are attempting to save face by blaming Klout for being misleading and engaging in unethical practices. Many of the most vociferous critics further strike me as disingenuous and hypocritical, and guilty of some of the same things they're accusing Klout of. And at least for me, in attempting to justify their own point of view they're undermining their own credibility and – well, influence. Ironic, isn't it?

We can attempt to kill Klout, but we won't slay the multi-headed beast in the foreseeable future. Until there's definitive proof to the contrary, Klout and its competitors (e.g., Kred, PROSkore, PeerIndex, Twitalyzer) will continue to try to measure – and monetize – people's influence in cyberspace. Certain individuals will continue to jump on the "next best thing" bandwagons and expend energy and social capital trying to prove they're right. And others will try to game the tools, just as they have with SEO. But – and perhaps most importantly – the vast majority of the world’s population will continue to go about their daily lives, oblivious to all the digital machinations.

Kind of makes you wonder if all this hullabaloo over Klout is “… a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (Shakespeare’s Macbeth: Act V, Scene V).

As always, I welcome comments and questions.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD

 

Comments

[Edmund Amoye]

Courtney,

At the least, I applaud Klout for trying to measure online influence. The mistakes that they make will be great resources for people a new generation of social media experts. Innovation is a process not a destination.

[Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD]

Thanks for your comment, Edmund - I agree. I think that's a point many critics seem to forget. I'm not anti-Klout; I'm just keenly aware of its limitations and think no one should put much stock in it or any similar measure until their validity and reliability increase.

[Karin]

Good summary Courtney. I did sign on to Klout and Peer Index early out partly because my usual sense of curiosity left me wanting to see how they would develop and how better to get a feel for that than to see what shows up for myself. I only linked my Twitter and LinkedIn accounts as this was an experiment and I wanted to limit the amount of cross access provided. Peer Index was more puzzling than anything as it consistently show my 'influence' in topics that could not have reflected either of my accounts linked and no topics that would have seemed realistic. I did have some email exchanges with someone at Peer Index regarding this and they seemed interested in fixing this but they never quite got there. There was some improvement but the results still had my 'influence' showing on topics that I know little about and have not mentioned in those SN accounts. I still have the account but stopped looking at it a long time ago.

I recently cancelled my Klout account because since the changes they have suddenly started showing topics that I could not possibly have 'influence' in which were added to ones that did make sense. I also grew a little bored with the confirmation that the quantity of posts in either account appeared to be the basis of the numbers that showed up rather than quality and that isn't a factor that matters much when ones business is based on knowledge rather than consumables. I had added my Google+ account to Klout at one point but I rarely use that account so it should not have made a difference in my numbers but it seemed to. The other day I decided just to cancel it to stem the increase in emails Klout is sending out since the changes-I get enough emails as it is, and the ones from Klout were not providing value.

I do agree with you about the tone of the articles, I have followed quite a few and they are all pretty much along the same theme as well as the comments that follow. I find myself intrigued by the sameness of the articles-they seem oddly angry and unprofessional but there is a sense that they could well have been written as a group effort they are so similar in feel. The tone of several of the articles appears to indicate that the writers accepted the credibility of Klout at face value yet that leaves one wondering exactly how well-informed they are regarding the state of social networks today. Surely a knowledgeable person would understand upfront that these are experimental in nature and that there are several core difficulties in arriving at a realistic measurement of influence in the social network world. Just a few of which are the ability to create partial or completely false profiles, the ability to automate posts (remember the quantity versus quality point) and that it doesn't seem to differentiate brands from individuals.

[Robert Keahey]

Interesting post Courtney. I've followed Klout for quite some time now and have been pretty vocal about its shortcomings. Of course those shortcomings are in the eye of the beholder, as I have had some interesting discussions (debates) with colleagues on the relevancy and value of Klout and the other "influence" measuring sites/services you mentioned. Especially when the discussion centers around using Klout as a screening tool in the hiring process (see related threads over at Focus.com).

I have no problem with Klout measuring "activity", which to me is a relevant indicator of social/digital participation. But like you, I cannot see how that translates into "influence" - mainly because there is no way to link my activity to causing the people whom I supposedly "influence" to behave differently as a result of my actions.

On top of that I simply don't understand the context of Klout's scoring algorithms, even in the area of activity. To demonstrate my point I penned a post comparing my activity to a colleague's. You can read my "analysis" (I use that term loosely since there was little science behind it) at http://goo.gl/LGm7I I also penned another post a few months back on the notion of "meaningless indicators of performance" - http://goo.gl/jvVhe

Like many others, I follow Klout simply out of morbid curiosity at this point. I have "tweaked" numerous aspects of my social behavior to see if I can make some correlation between what I actually do and what Klout thinks I do. To date, I can see no validity in their algorithms. But, in the end, as I have said many times, even if their algorithms appeared to be valid, I would question a site that ties "influence" to "perks". One strange business model...

[Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD]

Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Karin and Robert. I appreciate your insights, which continue to make me wonder how/why anyone would put much stock in these tools.

I activated my Klout account for the same reasons you did - curisoity and ongoing experimentation/study. I have chosen to keep it open, but I disconnected it from Facebook after I read about the issue with them creating automatically new accounts based on your friends. After I disconnected FB, my score dropped 20+ points!