Do you have Klout or are you just a Klouchebag?

Do you have Klout or are you just a Klouchebag?

When it first became popular, social networking site Twitter had a simple purpose, which was encapsulated in its tagline, ‘What are you doing?’ However, after aiding revolutions in the Middle-East, becoming the sounding board for everyone to post their opinions on everything, and giving celebrities a new platform to break controversies, Twitter seems to have lost its simple personality. This is reflected in its current tagline, ‘Find out what’s happening right now, with the people and organisations you care about’. The difference between the two reveals a lot about how social networking has changed in recent times. Responding to the earlier tagline is a voluntary act, whereas the current tagline is meant to tease — if you are not on our site, you are missing out on being in the ‘happening’ place. And now, to measure who the stars are in this ‘happening’ world is an online tool called Klout. It connects to Twitter, Facebook, Google and a host of other social services to measure how much influence you wield, giving you a Klout score out of 100. Influence is measured in terms of the number of posts you create, how many responses you get, the number of followers you have (especially ones with high Klout scores of their own), and other unknown factors that the proprietary Klout algorithm uses. Until recently, a Klout score was simply something social media junkies bragged about — the undisputed king of Klout world was Justin Bieber with a perfect score of 100. But there was outrage when Wired published a story featuring a marketing executive who lost out on a job because of his low Klout score. The story went on to talk about how people with high Klout scores were getting Audis to test drive, better rooms in some hotels, and preferential treatment by airlines. All because people with high Klout scores are more likely to talk about their experience and what they say would reach a larger number of people on social networks. Klout, along with marketing and sales reps, has effectively created an elite class among users of social networks. Like the elite of the real world, the virtual elites too have to yap and indulge in ‘I like your status, you like mine’ games. Social networking is no longer about expressing the things you genuinely care about. It’s about boosting a score to get material rewards. There is a loud grumble on the internet. In response to Klout, Tom Scott, a programmer, built Klouchebag, an online service that measures ‘the standard of asshattery’. Visit klouchebag.com and enter your Twitter username to calculate your score. Klouchebag measures asshattery based on the ARSE rating system. “Anger: profanity and rage; Retweets: please RTs, no or constant retweeting; Social Apps: every useless checkin on foursquare or its horrible brethren. English Usage: if you use EXCLAMATION MARKS OMG!!! or no capitals at all, this’ll be quite high.” If you are offended by the tags Klouchebag gave you, Scott has a piece of advice, “This is about as scientific as Klout’s own measurements — which is to say, it’s pretty much a crapshoot. You are probably a lovely person. Although you might want to cut down on the swearing a bit.” And in case you were wondering. Justin Bieber scored a 50, which translates to only ‘a bit of a douchebag’.