Reading through a recent magazine article, I ran across a discussion of Klout. It wasn't something that had popped up on my radar at any time. Folks I know don't really engage in it.
I took great pride in the fact that, at several points in school, I was the most mediocre. Out of 257 people in class, I was number 129. There were 128 people above and 128 below me. I was on top of the bell curve.
Klout is measured out of 100, with a couple of weighted measures fed into a black box and out comes a number. Given my history at the pinnacle of average, I pulled my accounts onto Klout, looking for a solid 50. I did not get that. I got a 10.
Yes, a 10.
Which, of course, pushes me to write the whole enterprise off as fart sniffing. What utter type-A personality circle jerking that feeds the instant-gratification need in a way that is only slightly less indefensible than clicking on a cow.
Fuck them. At least the cows were commentary.
Until you think that we do this every day for places to live. We develop any number of arbitrary metrics to rank and parcel out perks to communities. Klout is simply doing the same thing to people. Who are you by who has heard of you? Well, look at the data, it's all there.
I talk a lot about data. And I believe in using data to make places better. But we understand that, while the data doesn't lie, we do.
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