If you take it as seriously as some of the people in this news article, I believe that it means "you are an asshole." I loathe Klout. (via @pareene)

  • Thomas Zaraat

    Woo! My Klout score is 10.

    Edit: The link to delete your Klout profile is here: http://klout.com/corp/optout

    I told them I was insufficiently vain.

    • bob d

      Apparently a score of 10 is the minimum if you have a Facebook account (or possibly just for signing into Klout).  Based on a fake Facebook page that is empty and isn’t connected to anything, that’s what I got.

      • http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell

        FWIW, I have a (not-very) active FB, G+, and Twitter account, and my Klout score is 3.

    • Mitchell Glaser

      I find this fascinating. Imagine a world with competing meritocracy ranking companies. You could be a billionaire in Whuffie and pauper in Klout.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Arne-Reimers/547500087 Arne Reimers

    If I read the article right, all that is needed to get a high-paying tech job now is to game this Klout score (which should be easy). Looks like something Anonymous could have a TON of fun with. :-)

  • http://profiles.google.com/efdisaster John Voegtlin

    someone needs to bring back a plusoneme.com model… I think Google’s +1 thing killed it, because the name was too similar. It’s much friendlier than a score system like klout.

  • http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

    Looks awful. At least the name is suitably ugly…

  • http://anaraug.blogspot.com/ Walker Shurlds

    I have a 22. I have no idea why. Too many facebook friends I guess. I’d rather be a successful blogger though.

    Also, this: “Klout believes you are influential in Beer.”

    • Guest

       in soviet russia, you are influential in beer!

  • Sagodjur

    Klout is such a high school clique concept and I’m on the same side of the issue as I was on the issue of being popular in high school. I think it’s bullshit and meaningless because only real relationships with real, non-superficial people is important. If your influence over others is measured in marketing terms, you have influence over sheep who would just be influenced by someone else if you weren’t around.

  • Brian Nemo

    Klout: linear simplicity made out of complex non-linearity. By a bunch of @ssholes.

  • Joel Phillips

    Xeni’s klout appears to be inversely proportional to the length of her hair

  • Daemonworks

    Even if I did care about this, the fact that Bieber has a perfect score makes me want to have nothing to do with it.

    • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

       Agreed, when that’s the benchmark, where’s the incentive?

  • http://about.me/rosemwelch Rose M. Welch

    I got a year’s supply of free deodorant, so I’m down with it. *ducks and runs*

    UPDATE: I just checked for the first time since I got the smell-good (when Klout was new). I’m a 49 and I’m ‘influential’ about censorship, zombies, and Nanowrimo. LOL!

  • puppybeard

    “Later he learned that he’d been eliminated as a candidate specifically because his Klout score was too low. “They hired a guy whose score was 67.””

    Add that to the nine million reasons never to apply for a job in marketing.
    Speaking as someone who worked in an agency.

  • jparkuntz

    What’s the difference between Klout and Whuffie?

    • http://www.eff.org/ deaduncledave

      Oh good, I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to draw that comparison.

  • princessalex

    I’m sure I have a Klout score of zero.  I have no FB page, no Twitter account, and no other social media accounts.  I’m doomed.  

    • Ambiguity

       I’m in the same boat, but as opposed to feeling doomed, it kind of fills me with a sense of giddy optimism.

    • M Carlson

      Nah, we’ll just form the rebel alliance together – I don’t have FB or Twitter either so I’m sure my score is the same as your’s.

    • Guest

      Doomed to define happiness for yourself, just like Sartre promised.

      • Ambiguity

         Given Sartre’s general level of happiness, perhaps I should reevaluate my lack of twitter and FB…

        • Guest

          also your lack of Nazi occupation.

  • stealthisbook

    Ok, I signed up. What is this supposed to tell me? Scarily, they know my history and I apparently doubled my score up to 33 in the past few weeks for some reason. Also, I’m apparently an influencer on “social media analysis.” What the hell is social media analysis?

    They must have gotten me confused with somebody else.

  • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

    Apparently because I’ve logged into Klout 3 times I have earned the ‘Klout Addict’ badge.  I guess that says a lot about their retention.

    • Guest

      One more and you’ll be a Klout Stalker

  • Dito

    I signed up, linked my FB and Twitter accounts. I was ranked at 15. I clicked around a bit. A big box popped up saying I had lost a “K” and was down to 14.

    Account deleted. That was 20 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

  • serpent

    As if my life wasn’t complicated enough with my Hirsch index.

  • Guest

    If you have one it means you’re very suceptible to social influence. 

  • Lotney

    As a former WoW player the first thing i thought of was of Gearscore and how it ruined the game for many. I do not like where this is going.

  • That_Anonymous_Coward

    Awww I wants to cries….
    The cool kids can’t rate me because I don’t FB or Twitter.
    Why oh why would I not sign up for these things and then give a 3rd party access to my life to give me a score that means nothing?!?!?!

    If I ever encountered anyone who asked or cared what my klout score was I’m pretty sure I would ask them to get sterilized for the sake of humanity.

    I might not be an paragon of teh social medias, but I will find a way to carry on doing what I do.  I don’t need to be rated higher on some asinine scale to make myself feel better by virtually looking down on others.

  • snowmentality

    What are these “Klout perks”? Are they handed out through Klout, or do brands just look at Klout and send certain high-scoring people free stuff? Because if it’s the first one, then I can see why people get obsessed with high scores — it’s a game with pretty damn valuable prizes.

    • http://about.me/rosemwelch Rose M. Welch

       The first one.

  • Ipo

    Klout and I have never heard of each other.  

  • penguinchris

    Well, I had to check… seems like a pretty clever marketing scheme – it markets itself. Few people will be able to resist checking what their score is if they’re anything more than a very basic social media user.

    After connecting it solely with my twitter account, my score is 42. Apparently the people I influence the most are Stephen Fry and Rob Beschizza. Stephen Fry replied to something I wrote to him once on twitter, Rob also replied once or twice that I can recall.

    Since my other accounts (such as Facebook and G+) are locked down and/or I rarely use them, I assume that if I connect them to Klout (particularly FB) my score will plummet. Too bad it doesn’t work with Disqus ;)

    I can certainly see why certain people like it. The way it’s set up is very enticing – they try to make you sound more influential and cooler than you would describe yourself.

  • Andrew Eisenberg

    The obvious danger with Klout is although it measures something that may be somewhat useful for some people in some situations, it is quantitative and simple to explain so that it drowns out more nuanced approaches to understanding one’s online worth.

    Over reliance on data to the exclusion of intuition and experience is a problem coming up all over the place now that so much data is available.  Consider A/B testing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/B_Testing, Walk score, etc.