Klout: Nearly the Same Size as Twitter
Not long after Clickfire reported that Twitter hit a major 100 million active user milestone, we received word that Klout – a site that still advertises itself as being in a “beta” phase (see above) – has reached the same milestone. Considering that Klout’s own “About” page is still behind this figure by about 20 million users, it’s safe to say the online influence-measurer is growing at a pretty frantic pace.
Considering itself “the standard for influence,” Klout is not a traditional social media outlet like Facebook or Twitter, but rather a metric for your online presence. In addition to 100 million users, Klout currently advertises the fact that its metrics are used in “over 3,000 applications and partners use Klout data to display Klout Scores, prioritize based on Score or topics, and segment users. ”
From the Klout blog:
Today, I am excited to announce that 100 million people now have Klout Scores. While this is an exciting metric for our team, I think it’s important to recognize the broader implications of this milestone. One hundred million people with Klout Scores means that there are 100 million voices effectively leveraging the social web to share their opinions, hopes and dreams and shaping the decisions of the billions of people now listening to them.
There was no specific point made about “active” vs. inactive users, however, a distinction that Twitter was eager to make. Although one can safely assume most of Klout’s members are active users, there is no available data on just how active these users are, as opposed to the Twitter numbers we’ve seen.
September 18th, 2011
I don’t think things like Klout are bad, but wow they feel useless. Right now I really, really want more Facebook likes. That feels a lot more useful, trying to get recommended by a process similar to word-of-mouth. Looking up some more advanced stats doesn’t seem to contribute to the process, and I’ve done district analysis and microtargeting sorts of things when I’ve worked on campaign.
September 18th, 2011
Klout does seem to be subject of a lot of undeserved obsessiveness at this stage.