Ok, so aside from Google+, the latest excitement in the social media world is
Klout. Klout has made an effort to promote the idea that people with a higher "Klout Score" somehow or another have more… well… clout on the internet.
Here’s the big problem with that entire idea.
Klout’s proprietary algorithm is at best, incomplete, and at the worst, self serving. Not that my own Klout score is without some level of merit. I’m probably in the 90th percentile of social media users, although I am nowhere close to some of the social media titans like Brogan, Kawasaki, Pirillo, Scoble, Dave Morin, et al.
But in the grand scheme of things, I contend Klout is simply meaningless. It’s an attempt to create some idea of a standard where none can be created.
Does Klout take into consideration a database of 100,000+ email newsletter subscribers?
How about that discussion forum in a niche that has 100,000+ subscribers?
Yeah, that’s what I thought.No show.
In fact, there's some regular media celebs and NY Times best-selling authors with Klout scores in the single digits.
Yet, the band plays on.
That’s the beauty of the internet, anyone can declare themselves an arbiter or authority. And on the internet, there’s always millions of quiet folks you’ve never heard of, silently disproving your entire reality by merely existing.
Now here's the sad/scary part. Microsoft has proven over and over that all one has to do in order to declare a standard is 1) declare the standard, and 2) get enough people to buy into the idea that the standard they declared is really a standard.
Ironic, huh.