Klout is one of those services people is social media love to hate but yet it’s impossible, in our opinion, to deny its role nor its growing influence. In short, Klout (https://www.lithium.com/products/klout) is a complex set of proprietary algorithms that “scores” individuals based on how influential they are in the online world. By using Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc. your score reflects how important you are on the ‘net.
New Klout sidebar info in Bing
Microsoft’s Bing today has announced a new partnership with the company, which will bring Klout results into the search engine world. What for you ask? The idea is to basically weed out the “some guy on the internet” versus someone who writes on a topic professionally. Sometimes that’s hard for people who are not in the “know” of a field. From Microsoft:
“On Bing, we will surface Klout scores and influential topics for many of the experts in the People Who Know section of the sidebar. Klout as a social influence signal in the sidebar will really help customers connect with the right experts on the topics they are searching for.”
It’s not a bad idea though we’re sure lots of people will roll their eyes (looking at your Klout score is like Googling yourself on the internet—no one does it, but really everyone does). We’ve stressed many times here at Windows Phone Central that just because ‘someone on the internet’ says something, it does mean it’s true. That’s why we don’t post every cruddy story on Windows Phone from sketchy sites and why we came up with the Rum’o’meter (in addition to using Tracour)—basically trying to add some accountability back to the game.
Klout Score for Windows Phone
If you’re new to Klout, you can head to their site and simply “login” with Facebook or Twitter to get your score. You can then use some nifty third-party apps for Windows Phone to keep abreast of any changes (we like Klout Kikmeter and Klout Score the best).
It will be interesting to see how this integration with Microsoft goes for Klout—it’s one of the first major endorsements of the service by another major tech company and we suppose there is always room for Windows Phone to add native support should it catch on.
For further reading on how important Klout is becoming (and maybe get a chill sent down your spine), you can read Wired’s excellent article ‘What your Klout score really means’.
Source: Bing
