My Entry on Klout Now on CNNMoney
Posted on November 15, 2011 Posted by John Scalzi 21 Comments
You can see it here, if you like. They pinged me yesterday and asked if they use it. I said, “sure.” I’m guessing that if the folks at Klout managed to miss it yesterday, they’ll catch it today.
CNNMoney? Awesome! Your Klout score is going to go through the roof!!!
Dang, danielb beat me to it!
It’s a very strong, concise summary of the concerns that Klout raises. I have de-Kloutified (pitiful as my score was) as a result.
I had never heard of Klout before your earlier post, John, but it sure doesn’t sound like something I would want to use. And what Charlie Stross says seems pretty severe, if he’s correct in understanding how they operate.
I only heard of Klout myself initially via Charlie Stross’ blog too (I guess my Klout score would be low!). What sticks in my mind is his comment: if you are not buying the product, then you *are* the product…. Avoidable.
I hope CNN pays its “guest columnists.”
Well, I’m proud to be a not-Klout sort of person. So non-Klouty that I had no idea it even existed. But thanks for your words concerning it
“possibly evil” does make for a desirable headline.
Like others, I never heard of Klout, either.
Right now I’m amused that CNN has published the word “dicks” used as the pejorative term. Twice.
(Yeah, my inner twelve-year-old boy is rocking today.)
I see the headline they put on it is a little more attention-grabbing than the original entry. Should be interesting to see how Klout responds to it, if they do.
At least they didnt say that you were the co-author of the Forever War.
I hadn’t heard of it either until John’s entry. That’s technological edge of Web 2.0, now the world can turn against the latest fad before it has arisen in the first place. Can we apply this technology to the next round of wealthy socialites with substance abuse problems.
I wonder if the Klout people should have just called their rating “E-peen,” since that’s what it seems to be being used as.
Klout getting clouted.
(With the Mallet of Not-So-Loving Deletion)
“At which point I decided that Klout was actually being run by dicks”
Am I the only one surprised to see that line run unedited on a CNN Money article? I am guessing John would have allowed a substitution if requested (jerks comes to mind).
I appreciate a little foul-mouthedness when I come to Whatever; but it seems out of place at CNN.
They didn’t ask me to change it.
After reading about Klout I think I’m going to start my own company. It’s going to be called Slakk. It computes how mellow and generally unconcerned you are about being connected and important and hip and with it. It does this by checking Facebook, twitter, the blogs that you read, the number of people who read your blog, and the amount of time you spend killing zombies, divides it by a random number, adds in the number of cats you own and, with a little secret sauce, computes your Slakkosity. We don’t bother giving you the number, because we are pretty sure that you won’t give a crap about it.
John, I know you’d love to promote this, but drawing attention to ourselves does rather defeat the purpose. If you could just arrange to say nothing about it then that would be great.
(I just noticed that slakk.com is taken. Fortunately, I don’t care. My Slakkosity is through the roof baby).
? “foul-mouthedness.”
You’re saying that as if “dicks” isn’t a reference to Dick Turpin.
;p
I want a slakk number!
BTW, Klout gives a couple of places where you’re supposed to be able to find “close my account” links or buttons, but none of them seem to actually be working right now. There are multiple “how do I delete my account” threads in the help forums, and Klout staff are responding with “if you give me the email you registered with, I can delete your account” posts… Yeesh!
@ jen et al
Betcha if they do delete your account they don’t and said they did.
betcha they keep all the info, and just disable your login.
slakk sounds awesome! The only problem is the person that starts it gets a horrible slakk number…