Trust, but Verify

Recently an organization called Klout, the creator of the well-known measure of online influence, the eponymous 'Klout Score', released an extension for Google’s Chrome browser that lets you see the Klout score of all the people you follow on Twitter when you go to the Twitter.com website, (example of the Klout score, the number that follows the small orange 'K' icon, on a Twitter timeline below)

Now it certainly can and should be argued that the Klout Score may not truly be an accurate measure of online 'influence', and in fact it could also be argued the attempting to measure online influence is not even practical or even possible. How the Klout Score is calculated is not really well-understood by most, and in the grand tradition of other newer or arcane statistical measurements like football quarterback rating and barometric pressure it helps to attach well known performers to the scale in order to help contextualize the numbers.

Last year Tom Brady had the highest NFL quarterback ranking at 111, and Justin Bieber (among others) has a perfect Klout Score of 100. While we may not understand the raw scores of Brady's 111 and Bieber's 100, most football fans noted and can appreciate the great season Brady just completed, and in the online and offline world's, Bieber's ubiquity needs little explanation. The numbers themselves don't really matter, only how they allow us to slot and evaluate others in comparison.  If you are interested in this sort of thing, the full NFL QB ratings for the 2010 season can be found here.

Once I installed the Klout Score extension for Chrome, and went over to Twitter.com, it almost immediately changed the experience and also the perceptions I have of Twitter users I am following.  As the Tweets flew by I found myself constantly thinking, 'He is only a 50?' and 'Wow, how did she get to be a 72?'. I know Bieber is an 100, but I confess I really don't grasp the Klout Score all that well, but I can (for the most part), compare a pair of two-digit numbers and tell which one is higher, and therefore theoretically more 'influential'.

But 'influence', or lack thereof, is a highly personal thing.  A relatively higher Klout Score for one person I am following compared to another might say something about statistical measurements like replies and retweets, but it says nothing about a person's importance, value, and influence to me. As I looked at more of the Klout scores of the people I follow, I actually started to get a little ticked off when I saw a relatively lower score against someone I follow closely and whose updates I find highly valuable, and higher scores attributed to some users that quite honestly aren't all that interesting or influential to me.

These kinds of online influence scores while potentially an important initial step for people and organizations to better understand reach, connections, and possible value are still marred by the inability to apply the kinds of personizable filters and tags that could make them even more powerful. 

And sometime in the near future, as more organizations adopt internal social networking tools, be they microblogs or fully deployed social platforms, the ability to measure, assess, and compare influence and reputation of employees will likely become more and more important.  But before that can happen, at least in a fair and equitable manner, the methods to calculate these influence scores will have to evolve beyond the current mathematical and universal, and move more towards the situational and personal.

I think I am going to de-install the Klout extension for Chrome, I am pretty confident in my own ability to assess the influence of the people I follow. It's not that I don't trust the Klout score, but since I need to evaluate and verify them anyway, why have them (at least at this point), cloud up my judgement. 

And no, it is not (completely) because Bieber has almost double my Klout Score.