

Klout Is Odious - wyclif
http://www.somebits.com/weblog/culture/klout-is-odious.html

======
_delirium
The plus side is that Klout is so _bad_ at measuring anything approximating
influence that it's more of a scam than a real problem in the sense that this
post fears (at least currently). It's a really lazily computed metric that's
not validated against anything at all. Given an hour, HN users could probably
come up with a dozen still-imperfect but less stupid metrics, and maybe some
sort of start at a validation approach. But in the world of clueless social-
media-marketing execs, they're able to sell it to people who are even more
clueless than themselves. I hope that continues for now at least. =]

~~~
DanBC
> _Klout is so bad at measuring anything approximating influence that it's
> more of a scam than a real problem_

> _they're able to sell it to people who are even more clueless than
> themselves._

That's why it's a problem! Those clueless people use it for hiring decisions,
or other stupid reasons.

~~~
gmodena
Do you have any reference to companies doing so?

If anything, that could serve as a good qualitative metric for filtering out
eventual employers/clients.

~~~
barredo
[http://www.winrumors.com/microsoft-giving-
away-500-windows-p...](http://www.winrumors.com/microsoft-giving-
away-500-windows-phone-7-5-devices-with-klout/)

------
andrewljohnson
I Googled for my Twitter handle and Klout after reading this, and what bugs me
the most is this bit in the Google snippet:

"Andrew Johnson is on Klout."

Which implies that I have joined the site. If this were some pornography site,
they'd have a lawsuit on their hands.

~~~
josscrowcroft
It sort of _is_... it's _ego-pornography_

------
callmeed
The author doesn't even touch on what I find (potentially) most odious: that
big companies could use Klout data to discriminate for/against certain
customers.

    
    
        def process_complaint
          if self.user.klout > 40
            self.user.send_gift_certificate(100.00)
          else
            self.destroy
          end
        end
        
        def answer_phone
          if caller_id.user.klout > 50
            self.move_to_front_of_queue
          end
        end

~~~
mmahemoff
Klout already has arrangements with third-parties to offer perks to
influential users. (I don't see anything wrong with that, personally.)

~~~
abrahamsen
Free stuff to influential people are fine.

What callmeed fears is that businesses will use klout score to create a public
appearance of good service, without actually providing good service.

------
davidmathers
This is similar to the complaint 37 Signals had with Get Satisfaction:
<http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1650-get-satisfaction-or-else>

------
ericboggs
If you're interested in more thoughtful commentary regarding Klout or online
influence, I highly suggest my friend Tom's blog: <http://brandsavant.com>.

"My Klout is equal to Snooki’s. There isn’t a party, gathering or room in the
world in which I would be equally influential to Snooki. There’s a good
thought exercise for you."

<http://brandsavant.com/on-klout-bashing/>

~~~
mmahemoff
This is typical of the misinformation in the recent Klout backlash. Their long
game is not about a single number that places you higher or lower than Snooki.
it's about which communities you influence, and how much.

~~~
_delirium
Why do they publicize that number, then? If anything, it seems like the
misinformation is coming _from_ Klout. It's the thing they tout on their front
page, display prominently on the logged in page, etc.

------
mtkd
It's becoming a tenet that digital identity and influence is everything going
forwards.

What if the opposite happens? - it becomes fashionably alternative for kids to
renounce social, always connected devices and online generally - and
completely switch off.

Sometimes it feels like some of the things we're building make that more
likely.

~~~
spullara
I have a feeling that will be a lot like not having a home phone, TV and mail
service would have been in the 80s.

~~~
rednaught
Tv(with no Nielsen surveys/monitoring), phone(with no dinner marketing calls)
and mail(with no catalogs or AOL cds) works wonderfully. Let me pay for my
services and be a hermit. I understand not everyone wants to pay for services
and having that choice is great. Not everything has to be social.

------
sethbannon
There is something about having a private company controlling reputation on
the web that's quite disturbing to many.

And while I don't think your average HN reader places much importance in Klout
scores as a measure of reputation and influence, mass media outlets are
certainly starting to.

No transparency, quantity over quality, higher scores the more personal data
you fork over -- this is all movement in the wrong direction.

~~~
curiouskat
Google is a private company that controls your site's reputation via PageRank
-- assuming most of us have a personal site/blog, how is this that much
different?

~~~
sethbannon
While it's true that Google is in a sense a gatekeeper to people's personal
sites, it doesn't claim to be an arbiter of your page's (or your) reputation.
Rather, it only claims to be a judge of a page's relevance to the terms a user
searches on.

~~~
endtime
Part of relevance is a query-agnostic reputation score.

~~~
sethbannon
I stand corrected. I still think it's fair to say that the public doesn't view
Google as an arbiter of a page's reputation, though as you say they are
certainly aiming to be this.

------
m0nastic
I long for the days of an actual reputation system (like what cstross
described in Accelerando), and I suppose in that regard, Klout is making
progress.

I'd be happier if their system was based on some sort of actual reality, but
hopefully they'll figure that out in time.

I don't have an "account" with them, but I saw my Klout score displayed from a
Twitter app and it said I was influential about "Argentina". Never been; don't
know anything about it; never mentioned anything about it in a conversation.

I actually want a useful reputation system to take hold so I can implement it
in sorting messages. I've been working on an "interestingness filter" (where
spam is just considered the least interesting of all), and would love to be
able to say: "This email refers to topic 'X', and this sender is considered to
be reputable about that topic, so I'll score this message higher than I might
have otherwise."

------
sp332
You are not the customer. You are not a shareholder. You're not even a user.
So why should they care what you think of them? They're using your (very)
public data to provide value to their actual users. I don't think that's such
an odious idea.

~~~
veyron
It's odious because they refuse to remove info about you if you ask them to.
There is no legal obligation to, but most people believe that they should
respond to user requests

~~~
sp332
1\. It is not a user request, because you are not a user. The real users want
your data. So they have it.

2\. It's not personal information. It's your twitter handle and some info
about your "network" that anyone can get from the Twitter API.

~~~
eropple
Is my name on it?

Yes?

Then it's personal information, and those "real users" can go screw.

~~~
MartinCron
A phrase that I read here a while ago has stuck with me: "There's no way for
you to opt-out of people talking about you on the Internet".

Klout is just a (lame) algorithm talking about you on the Internet.

~~~
Confusion
There is a way to opt-out of people aggregating and making available
informstion about you. Especially in Europe.

~~~
MartinCron
I don't know if the European privacy laws would apply to freely offered public
information such as the stuff a person has on their public twitter profile. I
always assumed it was for things like personally identifiable data that you
gather through other means (e.g. a user signs up on your site directly).

The idea of people having an expectation of privacy in a broadcast medium
feels preposterous to me.

------
aristus
When I worked at Spock we had pretty much the same policy. Spock mined
everything it could, including corporate bios, news articles, phone
directories, etc. It wasn't deeply thought out; we just didn't have time to
work it out fully.

There was a time when people were regularly upset and surprised at what search
engines came across. It's not that the data are public, but how they are
collated and presented. Over time a balance was struck, mostly in favor of the
search engines.

I'm not sure what the right balance is here. At the very least there should be
some sort of opt-out in the same manner as robots.txt or removing yourself
from Facebook search results.

------
wallflower
Where are these two billion API calls to Klout's servers coming from? Are CRM
systems really doing a lookup on people's Klout score when triaging a call?

"we served more than two billion API calls in the month of June."

<http://corp.klout.com/blog/2011/07/two-billion-is-cool/>

~~~
waterside81
Gnip, the authorized re-seller of Twitter's stream, includes Klout scores as
part of its augmented stream. I'm guessing a bulk of those 2B calls are from
that.

But yes, MANY social CRMs are using Klout scores for ... I don't know what,
but they are.

~~~
philjackson
So does Datasift.

------
brc
What I found amusing was the outpouring of emotion last week when the Klout
algorithm changed and peoples scores dropped.

Now I can understand, first hand, the drama that a Google ranking change
involves, because it can mean real changes in revenue.

But a Klout score? I'd be surprised if anyone can find an example where a drop
in Klout score equated to a drop in anything else except the recipients ego
inflation.

As I dryly suggested to someone, maybe they should ask Klout for a refund if
they don't like their new score.

As a statistic, it's something I have because other people seem to find it
important, but I don't particularly care. Same as Google rankings - I don't
care about PR, I care about traffic volumes and conversion rates. I couldn't
care if I had a PR of zero as long as I got targeted and qualified traffic.

------
dendory
I've always seen Klout as a laughable site, somebody's pipe dream that he
could somehow, through an algorithm, classify everyone on the Internet. Google
has been working on that for data and hasn't even succeeded yet. But when
reading these articles, like how Klout is making profiles for everyone it
finds, including kids, without any kind of consent, and then linking those
profiles on public persona's profiles, again without asking and with no way to
remove it, then it becomes just an illicit practice that should be
investigated for illegal behavior. Klout is making seem as if these people all
agreed to participate, when it's not the case, which afaik is illegal.

~~~
mmahemoff
Google hasn't succeeded yet? it's certainly a useful site already as well as a
profitable one. Like Google, Klout will always be a work-in-progress. You
don't have to be perfect to be useful.

------
davekinkead
Last week Klout told me I no longer influence my wife. I could have told them
that years ago :(

~~~
MartinCron
Rodney Dangerfield, is that you?

~~~
davekinkead
No but its true - she hasn't even created an account but when I logged in last
week it said she was one of the facebook profiles I no longer influence!

------
nethsix
Perhaps Klout will become the killer-app to help educate the public on the
'dangers' of putting too much information the Internet. It is time people
become more wary of 'free' things too.

------
mark_l_watson
I don't like Klout either. I have found no way to "un-signup" for it, after
sending a while looking at their web site after logging in.

Best I could do was to turn off Klout access for my Twitter and Facebook
accounts.

I have never found any benefit from Klout. Other social apps like G+, Twitter,
and Facebook actually provide me with some value in exchange for information
on what I am doing.

The positive side of social networks is spending time creating content for
people who you like to read and read things written by people you know (or at
least know about and want to follow them). I don't see what Klout brings to
this party.

------
latch
Klout is odious?

People's need for ego-stroking is odious

~~~
ericboggs
Well said.

------
danmaz74
Is aggregating by username (or name) some public data, and then publishing it
on the internet, something that should be limited? I'm probably biased - on a
much smaller scale, that's something I'm doing too on hashtagify.me, where you
can also find a relative "score" for twitter users related to specific
hashtags - but this reasoning looks very dangerous to me.

Just to make an example, if I collect the data about political contributions
made by a given industrialist, and publish that data on my blog to say
something about that person's influence and political leaning, should the said
person be able to stop me?

On the other hand, if the published data or the accompanying analysis is
demonstrably incorrect, biased, and especially if it could be considered
libel, there are already ways to react. I think that those ways should already
be enough to protect one's only reputation.

------
NelsonMinar
Thanks for all the comments on my blog post. I particularly welcome them on
Hacker News, a solid community with a sense of which members have clout as
well as a scoring system for tracking the value of individual's contributions.
I think social metrics like Hacker News karma are useful; I just object to the
blatantly tacky marketing aspect of Klout.

After my blog post got some exposure Klout revived my month old support
request and removed the Klout page about me. I don't know if they changed
their policy in general or if I'm a special case. Already feeling regret; I
really needed some new Axe hair gel.

------
jwingy
Sounds a bit like sour grapes. If you have a problem with something like this,
you should have a problem with the fact that the data they're mining is public
data and not that people are mining it.

------
jjacobson
I think an aspect that s being ignored here is the lengths to which Klout is
going to make sure the info they are aggregating isn't exploited. They could
be gathering this info and then turning around and selling it directly to
marketers in the same fashion email lists are.

Instead they are trying to monetize by using perks, which is something you'll
never even know is available to you unless you visit Klout.com and log in.
Seems better to me than a marketing email with a double opt in.

------
BarkMore
Here's how to delete your Klout profile:

1\. create an account if you don't have one

2\. login to the account and go to <http://klout.com/#/edit-settings/profile>

3\. click the "If you would like to delete your account, click here" at the
bottom of the page.

------
joelmichael
Bizarre comic tweeter @horse_ebooks has the same Klout score (67) as @biz. It
was actually higher a little while ago.

Klout has also sent me their unsolicited Perk spam several times, even after I
disabled it via their website. I complained to them on Twitter but got no
response. In the end I blacklisted their domain.

------
gnubardt
You can get a lot of similar information (frequent topics & corespondents)
with ThinkUp, but you control your data.

------
ja27
Why is Klout any more odious than any number of other Twitter statistic apps?
<http://tweetstats.com/graphs/nelson> <http://twitaholic.com/nelson/>

~~~
aklofas
I am very proud of my influence: <http://tweetstats.com/graphs/andrewklofas>

------
xarien
Much like Jersey Shore, Klout has a particular target demographic which find
the service appealing (They're probably not reading HN). That particular
demographic also happens to be very sought after by advertisers. Good for them
I say.

------
alexwolfe
The problem with this is that you can't manufacture cool.

------
tomasienrbc
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS7nqwGt4-I>

~~~
tomasienrbc
Maybe that was harsh. I think Klout is fine as long as we don't take it too
seriously. I believe they're dedicated to perfecting what they do, and that in
a couple of years we'll see a much more interesting and useful product.

For now, I would suggest you calm down and quit whining about your privacy
when you continue to publicly post hundreds/thousands of thoughts a month on
the internet. Klout doesn't come in your home and watch you argue with your
wife and see how persuasive you are, it looks at your freakin' tweets.

------
justinj
Public domain - fair game.

