Klout Spam Is Back With A Vengeance

Started by ReadWrite, Aug 09, 2013, 09:31 PM

ReadWrite

I didn't know I still had a Klout score. In fact, I wasn't even aware that Klout still existed. I signed up years ago on a whim and then largely forgot about it, especially after Klout started forcing users to login using Facebook or Twitter credentials, making personal privacy impossible with the service.

But yesterday Klout struck back. With a vengeance. And odds are it hit you, too.

 

Despite my best efforts to forget Klout, it apparently remembers me. And you. I took to Twitter to complain about Klout's new attempt to make me care about its algorithms for influence and popularity, and discovered that I'm not alone in the Klout universe.

 

We are all, apparently, extraordinary together.

Within seconds, a dozen Twitter followers had remarked that they'd had the same message from Klout. It's possible that each of us "created a post recently that engaged a lot of people on [our] networks." That we're synchronizing our influential moments and Klout is merely the recorder of our greatness.

Possible, but not likely.

What is more likely is that some product marketing genius looked at LinkedIn, saw how well its useless Endorsements were doing, and decided to try to go one step further. The problem, however, is that with Twitter it's easy to see that we're all being played together, and often at the exact same time. As Monet Diamante notes: "It reminds me of the time LinkedIn told me I was in their top % of connectors and then saw everyone else got the same msg."

I'm told that some real companies actually use Klout scores to measure consumers and decide how to treat them. That's pathetic, given, as Jon Mitchell says, "Klout is a nearly arbitrary scoreboard" and that "there is no point of Klout, at least for normal people." Maybe some customer service representative will decide not to accept my return because my Klout score is too low. Maybe a restaurant will reject my reservation request because my Kloutishness is lacking.

That's OK. It's a risk I'll take.

I just wish that Klout would stop sending me emails about "new moments." The voyeur in me likes it when LinkedIn tells me who has been looking at my profile. There is no part of me that wants to hear how special Klout thinks I... and everyone else... is at the same time.

The Register's Simon Sharwood thinks "Klout is evil." I wouldn't go that far. I just think it's mind-numbingly pointless... and now obnoxiously invasive in my inbox.

 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

ReadWrite