The Future of Klout in Doubt?

 I had not heard of Klout before this class. After hearing about it, I was very interested. Klout provides social media users with an opportunity to competitive. It needs to think about its credibility and build it. Klout is a great site and great way to enhanse business-it should make some profit while it can. I plan to not only be innovate and creative in finding ways improve my score. Im excited to see how my score is at the end of the semester.

I have not heard of Klout. I also asked some of my friends and they did not know anything about it. I think they may have a hard time spreading the word about their service. I think some people would see as one more thing to keep up with it. I’m not sure what value this would add to people and why would they want to have to keep up with one more thing, unless you have tons of people following you and at that point you know really need Klout. 

Klout provides social media users with an opportunity to be competitive. People who take their social media very seriously for whatever reason can compare their score with the public and can educate them on how effective their social media is. Myself, not being an avid social media user, my social media use is solely for fun and interacting with my peers. I believe the best way to go for Klout is business social media. Business' are always trying to advertise their product or service and Klout provides the opportunity to see if their advertisements are being seen and notified. 

I had not heard of Klout before this class.  Not very many people I know know what Klout is as well.  As any growing business, you should always be promoting.  I do not see myself using Klout frequently.  If Klout revamped and made it more appealing to its customers, I see their business growing with a lot more ease.  Klout could be like any competition, people constantly raising their scores.  This could give Klout its growing push that it needs.

I remember when Klout was released to the public. It was the first tangible reference for social media enthusiasts to compete for power in the social sphere. Now a days a number isn't as important as the content behind the number. Sure, some can be an influencer on twitter but if their influence is about the weather, how to live -what's referred to as a "yolo" lifestyle, or what they are eating they are not utilizing their infiluencer power to promote an actual cause or influence change. Food for thought.

I had never heard about Klout before this class, but I just got my Klout score and am at a 40. Not terrible I guess—could be better. I think that it is a good idea to go after the user who is trying to raise their Klout score for fun or for a personal conquest. I feel like people are naturally competitive and will want to increase their score. I found myself wanting to connect more of my social media sites and wanting to tweet more, post more, and connect with more people just for the sake of raising my score.  I’m not sure how I feel about companies giving certain influential people preferential treatment because they have a better Klout score. It seems like a way to discriminate. If you don’t have a good Klout score, they can treat you poorly without as many consequences because you aren’t as influential. It is a good idea though from a marketing standpoint. It makes a lot of sense to treat the people who are going to have the most influence the best because if you do something good for them, they will put good word out for you (and if they are influential, people will then think highly of your company). Though, for example with the American Airlines partnership, if one of these influential people tweets about the lounges and I see it, go to American Airlines expecting the same but don’t get that treatment, I might be disappointed. I think that they should work on getting a lot of people using Klout for fun and competition and then once they have a solid following start to go after the enterprise, large marketers who want the data to promote products and services. 

I think Klout is a great idea, but it needs to think about its credibility and build it! I like Klout, but honestly I cannot see myself consistently using this tool in the future. Yes, I will check my score every month or so, but I can't see it being consistent. I hope as they continue to grow, Kout will gain credibility and find a way to gain consistent users.

I think Klout might have more success if they target their service towards individuals like myself, who use Klout for fun and as a sort of mini-competition among friends. People want to feel like they are being heard, and like they have an influence over others and a high Klout score is one way to do that. I actually had an active Klout account before this class, just to take stock of how influential I am on social media, before this class I had a score of 60, and I'm hoping to improve it even more! 

While large marketers could also find Klot useful, I think Klout would be better serviced if they open it up for all to use, not just brands or people in the social media business.

I'll start the same way everyone else has. Before this class, I had never heard about Klout. After hearing about it for 2 minutes, I was very interested however. As soon as I got home, I started linking every applicable account, even going as far as making new profiles that I never anticipated getting just so I had more to link. As of this day I'm still unable to link my YouTube account however. Check out my Klout score here! After reading the article, I see arguments for both sides. The argument that Klout should go after businesses more heavily to track data and promote products and what not is compelling, but I don't think you can argue that social media is a young man's (/woman's) game. Social media is booming, with no signs of slowing. Any new social media site that explodes, people get. It's inevitable. I said I'd never get a twitter, instagram, etc; but look at me now because of this class. I think people like to challenge themselves, especially when it doesn't require a lot of work. People like to look at their grades, even when they are bad. Don't ask me why. This allows people to see their "Social Media Grade" and improve it to their satisfaction. Even compete among friends. I started with a score of 52, much higher than anticipated. It's slumped lately, but it does urge me to use Klout more to improve it. I think Fun trumps work everytime, and in this case, Klout should follow that theory.

klout is an amazing thing for me. Before the class, I have never known about this social media site. Klout pulls data for half-a-billion people on Twitter,Facebook,Linkdelin and other social media sites. It also highlights topics where people are most influentical, and generates a score for everyone between 1 and 100. I have a low score when I built an account in Klout. I thought i should make my accounts in Facebook, Linkedlin, Twitter and my blogs more updated. Otherwise, Justin Bieber had a perfect Klout score of 100. Many celebrities have Klout score. It looks more and more popular among people.

I like to think I'm somewhat savvy in social media after my internship this summer, but I don't think my boss at the Social Media firm I worked for even knows about Klout....or at least didn't tell me about it. I think it's a great resource for companies to keep track of who is influential online, and seek them out for further promotions/giveaways on products to expand the online conversation. Also, it's a great personal resource to keep track of how influential you yourself are, and what ways you can improve this to become more well-known online. I thought this was an interesting article, and I think Klout is definiltey a resource many should pursue. Since taking this course, I have explained the Klout program to many of my friends, and they too are now signing up for the application. I think word of mouth will help the program succeed and in turn help individuals succeed professionally by gaining recognition for their influence online.

I hadn't ever heard of klout before this class, and I must say it is an interesting tool. Since I have started using it for my personal account, I have spoken to people I work with for an organization on campus and we have been tracking the organization's social media outlets. The only hiccup I can see is how do you know if it's reliable. As an organization I don't see how we can rely completely on our score measuring how successful we have been on getting our point accross. After all, it's just a number. From a personal standpoint I find it fun to check my score and see how much I can improve as time goes on. In my opinion, using it for personal social media is more useful than for a business. 

I'm the Social Media Hermit, so obviously i had never heard of Klout before this class (i thought it was some kind of ear infection to be honest). After i heard more about it i can see how valuable it is. It's less about popularity(which is what i originally thought) and more about how RELAVENT you are! After reading the article i think the Enterprise Side is the way to go! Klout is a great site and a wonderful way to enhanse buisinesses- it should make some profit while it can!

I think the Buyer Persona that Klout should go with is the Enterprise side. Although Klout like other social media functions was originally made for users to have fun and be soical, it is now a very useful tool for businesses needing social media promotions. Marketers can retrieve so much data off of just Klout that they can see what consumers want, have purchased and feedback on products/services. Social media has become a strong marketing tool and in my opinion Klout should follow suit and make revenue while it can. 

After being introduced to this new gem “Klout” I’ve seen a huge improvement in my social media engagement. I believe to raise your score you have to take a competitive view towards it. To be the best you have to want to get that glorious score of 100.

Although I am somewhat new to social media aside from Facebook, I find myself quickly becoming more engaged in multiple social media platforms. This being said, the growing "Klout" score will see an increase due to my increase in social media activity. When it comes to personal as opposed to enterprise usage, I do believe that the best way to go is personal use. Although these social media platforms continue to grow in a business environment, I don't think that you can necessarily judge or in this case rate them by score on their productivity. This startup should be used in a fun and non competitive manner in my opinion. However, who knows what the future entails, and maybe some day it will be extremely crucial to have that highly competitive Klout score that some aggressively pursue.

Prior to this class I had never heard of Klout. At first glance I was not crazy about the website’s services/ To me it seemed to be a way to rank how popular you were on online/how much time you spent online. At further glance I have come to like Klout a lot more than I expected. It is a great way to see how relevant you are as a person online. In this day and age everything is online and it is impetrative to have a presence online. When I first enrolled in this class my only online experience was facebook. Three weeks later I am now on Twitter, Linkedin, and instagram. I will be checking my Klout score thought the semester and I will try to get it as high as possible. My Klout score right now is 36! Not a bad start but I want to try to break 50.

I’m the girl who wants to work for Google, and made that clear during our class in Novi. With this being said, I first joined Klout that day, September 14, with a score of 39. Now, about two weeks later, I have added Instagram, Foursquare, and Last.fm to improve my score. As of today, I am at 57, and have been stuck here for a few days. But hey, I’m only one point behind Obama!

Honestly, the best strategy in my opinion would be to pursue audience #1. While Klout isn't super small anymore, a lot of people don't know about it. Heck I hadn't heard of it till this class. So by making it more fun, the more people will want to join it. Just look at sites like Facebook or Twitter. Those started out small too, but had something unique about them that people liked. So word spread and now they are the social media giants we know today. Not saying Klout will get that big, but to have people actualy enjoy your product seems to do more work than just simply being there.

Before this class I had never heard of Klout. When I signed up for a chance to win the lunch at Google I was a surprised to see that my score was already at 55. I think that the consumer aspect of Klout is very interesting. As a competitive person I think that it is awesome to now even be able to compete with people in who is “better” at social media because I spend so much of my time logged into Facebook. I also understand that Klout is a business and it is important for the company to focus on how it needs to make revenue. I love the idea of getting perks for having a higher Klout score; I have no problem sharing a page with my friends, especially if I am going to be rewarded for it. Overall, I think Klout has a lot of potential but it just really needs to get its name out there so people know about it more. 

It was great to learn about the new start-up Business Klout and what it does. After all we all spend most of our time on different social media websites weather on personal computer or on mobile devices. The intresting thing that i learned was how klout gethers your social presence and ranks you between 0 to 100. Reading the article, I got surpriced how klout showed Justin Bieber more influencial than the president of United States. it is not new thing that business connected online make mistakes due to glitch in their system.

While I agree that Klout is definitely a great resource for getting a gauge on one's online presence, I question if it's capable of really capturing one's true "score." I believe Klout will be a predecessor to a new and greater technology, much like Myspace was for Facebook. Social media, as we know it, is still very much in it's infancy stages, and I'm definitely excited to see where it will goes. I predict that we will either see a vastly improved Klout in five years, or an altogether different tool for gauging this. 

I've heard of Klout before this class, and I think it can be a fun tool-- but it works too slowly and is too obscure for it to be truly useful. I was at 44 when the class started, and now I'm at 51-- mostly because I write about Harry Potter a lot on my Facebook nowadays. It also seems really desperate and sad. If you are bragging about your klout score, you seem like you really have nothing going for you except that you can be compared to Justin Bieber. Harsh, I know-- but there's something sinister and fake about measuring something like sociability. 

I had never heard of Klout before the New Media Driver's License class, so i would agree that the future is in doubt for the company. I have a Klout score of 44 and I feel that I am only active on a couple of my social media sites. I used to use Facebook more but slowly lost touch with it. I stopped talking with quite as many people so it was eaiser to use Twitter or my phone to get ahold of the ones I do. My Twitter is constantly used and Linkedin is frequently updated. With Klout, I signed up to see my score and try to win the trip to Google. There was nothing that caught my eye about Klout as I could not figure out how my score is calculated or what I would do other than brag that I had a bigger score than my friends. I feel like the novelty wears off far too quickly to be considered as a social media platform that will stick around. I don't see it being a big hit with companies since there is not much to talk about. It may catch on among personal use, but it will be for a short amount of time.

Before this class i was not quit sure what exactly a Klout was. The only thing i knew was that it was some kind of score. The way it grades your social media is very interesting. It shows you how interactive and socially "out there" you really are. The klout these days are alot more accurate then before. It gives employers an idea of how social you really are when they are looking to hire you. The Klout score is a factor in whether or not yu get the job in some cases.

I do think the future of Klout is in doubt. Like many students have said in previous comments before, I have never heard of Klout or known anyone to recommend it before NMDL. I also am not entirely sure how I feel about putting all of my profiles under one site, it felt a little invasive and like it would hurt me professionally in the long run. The reason I created a LinkedIn profile was for employers to look at that, not my Facebook or my Instagram that I have for personal use. I also don't think I should have to create two profiles for each social media site just to make sure all of my posts are safe and appropriate. But if I could see businesses and other networking potential available on Klout maybe I could be more optimistic. Klout should definitely promote itself better; this could be done simply on other social media sites, PR campaigns, and even by incorporating themselves in career fairs and career help centers at universities and other community organizations. Overall, if Klout doesn't start advertising themselves, I feel like it will be another failed social media copycat that never quit made it. 

Never before have I heard of Klout till NMDL. My Klout score is at 34, however my page is still updating. Even though this score is low, frankly I am not surprised. I am not actively involved with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other forms of social media. I used to be very involved with Facebook until I noticed it was a scapegoat for people to let out their anger and political views that create a big stir. I recently created a Twitter page not only for this class, but also for my journalism class. Lastly, LinkedIn I have used before this NMDL and have been keeping it up to date. However, this network I rarely go on a daily bases.

One way Klout should promote its social media site is through campus reps. The way Facebook started was through Harvard University, intended for Harvard students, but expanded through other colleges. Even though Klout is at a stand still, even Facebook is still ever changing. It started off, as a simple site to connect with friends and now it’s the biggest social media site that is consistently growing. In order to stand out it takes time. It’s not something that happens over night.  Here is an article that goes further into detail about facebook history.

 Although Klout creates a form of competition, competition can be healthy. It can be healthy for a business and for yourself. With a business, it generates an outlook on where your business stands through social media and potential how well people hear and talk about your business. Competition for yourself can push you to make sure you become well known. Its not about competition between others, its about improving. Here is a great resource explaining why competition is good.

Like most people who commneted this, I had also never heard of Klout until taking NMDL. After signing up I thought the website was easy to understand and navigate through. I think it's a cool way to make social networking competitive. Although I really liked it the first couple days, I lost interest with it quickly. After awhile it's hard to really increase your score and I feel as if I post enough on social medias as it is. I also question how they calculate our scores since I think I post a lot and get a lot of feedback from my followers but my score is lower than a lot of people I know who have even less followers than me.  I think an issue is poeple sign up and lose interest. They need to come up with something to gain members and KEEP them. 

I have never used klout before, although I have heard of it from different friends.  I can see how it would be entertaining and significant at first, but it seems like it could also be seen as a "popularity" contest for the business world.  It does not let you connect with other people, but instead forces you to compete with your peers for a better score.  I feel like to keep up with everyone else I would have to be either very influential on my social media sites or very clever to attract followers.  The more influence you have the higher your score is going to be, but who, or what, is to say that you have a greater impact because of that.  I'm not a fan of a site giving out ranks based upon how awesome you are in the social media world, and can definitely see why it would have a shaky future.

I think Klout is a great tool for both 'personal conquest', and large businesses and corporations. In order for the company to be successful, however, I believe that Klout should focus its attention on large marketers. Aside from the obvious monetary aspect, focusing on large marketers and enterprise can benefit Klout in a mutual way with those marketers. Access to personal social media data can aid marketers in targeting and placement of ads, while concurrently boosting the Klout brand. As evidenced by the 'Business Insider' piece, Klout is clearly looking for a sense of direction, and I believe pushing big marketers and corporations would be a great first step in rejuvinating their brand.

I had never heard of klout before this class. I still am not quite sure of the point of it, besides your score but I dont see why you need a computer generated number to see how influential you are. If you are a business you should be able to know how big of an influence you are in the social world by how much love/hate you get from your peers. I personally dont think I will ever get into using Klout unless it is required by a future employer for some reason. Also I think that the name of the site is terrible.

I'm so happy more people are hopping on board with Klout! I have used Klout previously for other COM classes but it still seemed pretty unkown to most people until I hit this class! I'm hearing about Klout everywhere, and I've even been asked to submit my Klout score to some of the jobs I have started to apply for, its no joke! I know a lot of companies that are looking for sscouting for PR majors, use "twitter influencer maps" to track how much influence a certain user is projecting world wide. I recently read this artilce on forbes.com called "Look Out Klout, These Twitter Influencer Maps are Amazing," (http://goo.gl/kAEng)  and it basically talks about how companies really value social media now, and its using social media as a tool to reach their client base. The more twitter influence someone has, the more potiental clients being reached, which leads to ultimately more money. Sites like http://tweetlevel.edelman.com/ allow you to view how popular you are in the twitter verse in a matter of minutes! Just proving that slowly but surely social media is taking over the world!! Hopefully after taking this class everyones Klout scores improve- and if you have a chance check out your Tweet Level- its pretty interesting!

I have only briefly head of Klout before this class. I was told to link it to some social media profiles I am working on for another business to track my progress. I didn't really know what this meant until class where we were challenged to raise our score. After looking at the site and linking all of my profiles, I really don't see the point. Maybe some prosepective employers care about your social media influence for the job, but in most cases I think this is a silly game against yourself to spend more of your time on social media sites. I am participating for the lunch, but I don't think that many people will be too interested in Klout long term. It may be fun to see your original score and track it for a little while to see what you do that changes it, but I think people will get tired of it and forget about Klout quickly. I don't see it making a real impact with personal users like I said, or companies looking for influencers to promote.

I had never heard of Klout before this course.  As a recreational social media user, it has been exciting to see my Klout score increase from 48 to 51 in just a few days!  With every email whose subject reads, “Your Klout score went up!”, I get a little rush.  Being at a crossroads like the one at which Klout finds itself must be difficult, but it’s a really important place to be.  Now is the time when Klout can refine its vision and mission statements, thereby determining its primary partner for its lifetime.  Yes, ultimately Klout will drift away from someone, either us personal users or enterprise marketers.  Isn’t that what adolescence is all about anyways – finding out who makes you happy?  Someone’s heart is bound to get broken in the process.  My advice to Klout would be to choose the enterprise marketers over us personal users.  We are quick to fall in love and intensely infatuated for a time, but we are fickle and may abandon Klout to the next big thing, like we did to Myspace for Facebook.  Enterprise marketers may not be monogamous in the long run either, but I think they are more devoted overall.

Like many others before this class I had no idea what Klout was all about. After learning about it I think that Klout has a lot of potential. It's a good idea for klout to be more focused on the marketers. The marketers want the users to promote their products and services and this would help klout. Many people who start off using klout don't really understand it and after a few months they stop using it. Users will stick with klout if businesses get involved and that way they will build more users. Getting involved with well-known businesses will help klout make themselves known, and more people will be familiar with it. 

Before coming into this class, I do have to admit that I did not fully understand the point behind Klout. I think if they were to do it more directed toward kids for fun then they would be competing with Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram. I know that they make up the score of klout, but that's just another Social Media to have to keep up with, check, update and things like that. If Klout were to market it to enterprises I think it would worker better. I believe this because companies who use Klout will be able to do the advertising to kids anyway. Kids or any customer for that matter, would go to these companies and hear about klout, realize that they can get discounts and even promote products. If Klout were to make enterprises it's target audience, it is likely that the enterprises would advertise that they use Klout. And when they were to advertise that, kids would start to wonder what Klout is, and look it up. That's how things grow, people find them, try them out, and if they like it, they'll tell their friends about it.

I think Klouts biggest problem is they way they market it. For a new and growing business, it's besides to decide on ONE target audience and then start to market it to that one target audience. Klout went about it the wrong way and are struggling to decide on whether to market it to kids or large enterprises. Pick one and advertise the crap out of it and it will grow from there.

Never before have I thought to expand the way I have used Facebook, Twitter, etc. outside of a mode to stay connected with my friends and family. From one class session of the NMDL course, I have already gained a great deal of insight on improving the way a person or business can use social mediums as a marketing or public relations tool. Klout is one of those extraordinary tools that I have learned about and I can’t say that I have ever heard of it before this course.

Being scored on how influential you are on the most popular social mediums is a great piece of data to have before you. As a business, knowing your Klout score reflects how effective your online marketing strategies are working to generate revenues. It is a great tool for any business because you can compare your score with competitors, identify areas where you can make improvements, and then make the necessary changes to increase the influence you have on your followers. You also have huge amounts of consumer data available that a businesses can analyze and use in their favor. There is a strong correlation between how successful a business is and its Klout score. As this correlation continues to become more apparent to the business world, I believe this start up social network would be very wise to target large marketers.

On a business and personal level Klout will continue to impress the on-line world on an international scale. Overall, I feel that Klout is fun and useful. I plan to not only be innovative and creative in finding ways to improve my score, but to just have fun with it to see how high I can go. 

Klout was foregin to me as i was told about it in the first Saturdays NMDL's class. Klout seemed pretty interesting to me as i began to explore it.  I am always down for expanding my social media experiences as i use them to gain business among people looking for videographers. Klout seemed like a great way to track how well stuff i posted on Instagram, Google+, and Facebook spread amongst viewers. Right when i started i had a Klout score of 54, now after connecting these platforms i am at a score of 60. Which seems to be pretty good! I just connected my Twitter, as i didnt notice it was not connected before.

Being a aspiring filmmaker, I am always trying to gain more attention on social media so people can view my work and i can expand my network to those who are in need of video work. I enjoy how klout tells me how much my activities on these sights are highering and lowering my score. Im excited to see how my score is at the end of the semester.

Klout was foregin to me as i was told about it in the first Saturdays NMDL's class. Klout seemed pretty interesting to me as i began to explore it.  I am always down for expanding my social media experiences as i use them to gain business among people looking for videographers. Klout seemed like a great way to track how well stuff i posted on Instagram, Google+, and Facebook spread amongst viewers. Right when i started i had a Klout score of 54, now after connecting these platforms i am at a score of 60. Which seems to be pretty good! I just connected my Twitter, as i didnt notice it was not connected before.

Being a aspiring filmmaker, I am always trying to gain more attention on social media so people can view my work and i can expand my network to those who are in need of video work. I enjoy how klout tells me how much my activities on these sights are highering and lowering my score. Im excited to see how my score is at the end of the semester.

Like most of the others who commented, I also had never heard of klout before until this class. Upon reading the article, I realized there are many social media sites that I have not heard of before. Everyone knows the big social media sites like facebook, twitter, instagram, and linkedin, but now I am realizing there are so many more things social media can do. My current Klout score is 35 but Klout has still only factored in my facebook and not my instagram and twitter yet (I'm still waiting). I think Klout was a great idea for large marketers because they can now seek to see how effective their social media advertising is and how much people are talking about them. It is true from what I learned from the article that it is hard to start up a social media site in its adolesent years. Marketers will have to work hard to get the word out about their sites and hope that people will enjoy using them. Some social media sites, however, seem to grow old and have a death and I hope that will not happen to Klout even through its rough patch or "stuggle bus" period. 

Before Saturday's class, I had never heard a single word about the company "Klout".  This may be because I don't usually look into start-up companies.  However, their situation is interesting.  The Business Insider article spent a great deal of time and typograhic space comparing Klout to Twitter and other teenage web interests.  However, as an adult I don't see the appeal of Klout and deem Twitter a much more interesting and interactive company.  

My Klout score doesn't seem to be a fun activity or a personal conquest but rather akin to the second portion of the buyer personas.  Yes, I am taking the side of a consumer rather than an advertiser but I feel as though it is valid, especially given the fact that their COO left for a more profitable start-up.  In fact, I believe that if Klout does plan to go beyond what they dubbed as "the mess", they need to focus on large marketers.  The large marketers are the ones who are going to invest in the company, not average users.  I can admit that users are important for Klout's overall databases but other than they don't seem relevant.  Additionally, relevance is one of the most important factors of a start-up.  Without it, the general public as well as investors will ignore it and profits, if at all, will remain stagnant.  Thus if no one in the market deems Klout as a revolutionary or marketable enterprise, it won't have see growth.

I have never heard of Klout until the first class. I was amazed by how different social media websites can be merged and synced through Klout. My current Klout score is 35, which is kind of depressing because I consider myself as a social media addicted person. Haha. Hopefully I can get to manage Klout and get more involved in more social media sites in order to keep building my Klout score.

When it comes to the target audience, I think Klout should go for enterprise and job seekers. As a new startup company, I think Klout might not be competitive enough to outweigh the present social media websites such as facebook and twitter, as they alreay are well established and trustworthy. On the other hand, since Klout features its Klout score and how people can access multiple social communities through it, I think it would be a great opportutnity to promote these distinguished functions to businesses and job seekers. For example, by useing Klout, job seekers can easily build their profile and improving their Klout scores. For enterprises, they can go through the Klout score as a reference of their potential employees. 

However, I think Klout should be aware of the privacy problems since the profile and information of users are very transparant. Users might have concerns about their personal privacy, especially Klout requires users logging using Facebook or Twitter credentials.

The word Klout is a new term for me. When I first heard it mentioned in class last week I have to admit I was sort of perplexed. It didn't help that my first thought when hearing the word made me think: gout. After reading the article posted by Business Insider I was able to get a better understanding of its purpose. It's a very interesting social media tool, although I'm still skeptical of its use. I understand how a businesses’ Klout score can be very influential in its work society, however, as a regular, everyday, Internet bystander I can see this as just another communication tool to obsess over. As someone who isn’t so ‘social’ it can also be an aid, or a crutch, and help one become more active in the social media world. I can tell from the article it is obviously important to keep up and stay current, but competing over who’s more social than who takes me back to the 8^th grade when everyone started getting Facebook and you knew you were popular when you had over 1000 wall posts on your wall. Then you look back on those petty arguments five years ago and laugh at the fool you were for letting the Internet rule your life. Then again, maybe the Internet does rule our lives now. So, while I think having a math equation tell me how social I am is more odd than thoughtful, I will admit that I’m signing up today (curiosity getting the better of me), despite my judgmental opinions.

That was an interesting read and a great follow-up question to discuss the crossroads Klout is currently facing on their quest to build a financially stable tech company.  Fernandez's ending quote from the article best summarizes Klout's current stage in the development of their business, "If your vision is to build something big and bold that has never been done before, it's likely going to take time.  Any long journey can look like a failure when you are only half way through".  Klout's next step will be crucial to its success or it may be indicative of its demise.

Based on the information presented in the article, Klout needs users to provide value to enterprise clients.  Klout's focus should be on discovering the delicate balance of attracting users - and the scarce resource of willingly-volunteered data - while catering to enterprise clients.  However, a greater emphasis needs to be placed on developing how Klout can use the valuable data from users to generate revenue from enterprise clients.  It appears that Klout has already realized this concept and is working to develop tools to measure "earned media", which research has proved to be the best form of marketing and publicity for brands and ultimately in consumer decision-making.  Nothing resonates better than the recommendation from a consumer's trusted inner circle; even if that inner circle is a group of long-lost friends from middle school.  The smart, and likely the most profitable, move for Klout will be to take advantage of the unique resource they have created and package it for CMO's who are willing to pay for the harvested intelligence.

I feel as though the enterprise side is the best way to go.  I have actually heard of Klout before hearing it from this class.  I was introduced to Klout near the end of my sophomore year.  When I first encountered Klout I honestly had no idea what the hype was about.  I didn't really understand the purpose of it.  I had a friend who was working for an Ad agency already and she encouraged me to get a Klout and start building up my score.  She insisted that many big companies will look at your Klout score to see how influencial you can be amongst your peers and followers.  When I first got Klout my score was embarrassingly low, it had to have been around 30.  After getting Klout I managed to get involved with a few more social media sites in order to keep building my score.  I'm now currently sitting at a 57 and still striving to get higher.

The reason I feel an enterprise audience is the best bet is because Klout can truely grow if big companies start using it.  I do feel that it is important that young advetisers and marketers get a Klout while still in college.  This way we can build our scores up until we start searching for jobs.  It's kind of like a type of credit score.  If you have a good score, more companies will want you to be apart of them, where as if you have a lower score it might be harder to acquire a job in the field of advertising.  Another plus to having a high score are the various discounts and advantages that some companies today hold, such as hotels and restaurants.  I believe the growth of Klout, will increases the growth of this social media world we currently live in.

I believe that Klout is a very good idea and has a lot of potential for marketers in the future. For now I think they need to focus on their consumers. The website needs to be focused more towards becoming its own social media in a way and less towards drawing in investors. They need to continue to improve the algorithm and keep rewarding it’s users with “perks” from companies. Once they have established a following with it’s consumers, and perfected the scoring and the ranking, then they wont even need to search for investors anymore. Businesses will come to them and they can sell or rent out the information they are currently gathering. For now though, my opinion is that Klout’s main focus should be geared toward improving the user experience and drawing in more consumers.

As a sub note though I thought that the analogy between startups and a growing person was very interesting. I currently work for a marketing company that is only 3 years old now and it is fascinating to compare these characteristics to my company right now. Very true.

Before I began this course, I had not been introduced to the website of Kloute. I was introduced to it for the first time about hearing about it this past Saturday through this class. After reading more about it, I found it to be a very interesting social networking website. I truly believe that I could see this this only growing and becoming more popular in the future as more people begin to hear about it. I think that this is a great social networking tool because it opens competition, which many people find intriguing and important in life. When I decided to download this application, the first thing I did was I decided to test myself. My initial score after I had hooked everything up was a 32. From there, this application became very addicting and I did I tested myself a few more times. I ended up with a score of 50. This app. has showed me the importance of social media and especially has showed me how it is essential in my advertising career. Something I found interestign was that if you look at stars and famous people, they have scores that raise way above anyone else. This raised the question to me, does it neccasarily mean they are publicizing themselves in a positive manner, or is it more about popularity? Popularity is obviously essesntial, but I think it is more imporant for businessses and companies to look at the quality of the person. Some people are not as in to social media as otehs, but doesn't mean they don't have the same potential as somebody with an outragous score.

Klout is reaching out to different target audiences. The different categories justify the fact that there are different people within the business. The different categories reflect different types of personalities, which is what makes the business profession more competitive and keeps it more "up and coming", especially through social media. Klout has made it so that it gives information about different people. It gives them somewhat of a background and how a certain person can fit a certain profession or job tittle. It can help companies find a certain type of person they could see working for their individual company, or how they can make there company more competitive in the business field. This application can be viewed and used as a organizational tool. There are many different branches of social media, that are all similar, yet very different. This is a way to organize them, and bring each tool together, to rate and really figure out someone who might be seeking employment in the future. I am curious as to how I can raise my score during the duration of this class, the more I learn about social media and how it will reflects me as a person and my advertising career. It is importnat for me to learn the best way I can make what I do on social media benefit me in the more positive way possible. Klouts tool defiently puts what goes on in the business world when it comes to recruiting a little bit more in to perspective.

As a competitive year round athlete since the wee age of 6, I cannot help but trying to come out on top. Swimming with a prestigious swim club, Club Wolverine, for many years helped me to see personal failure as a fuel to my fire.  With a platform like Klout, it gives me yet another opportunity to strive for success. I realize in the advertising world I am going to have to be used to failing (which is something I’m working on).  Before our first class I, and apparently 99% of the class had never heard of Klout.  After connecting all my social profiles I received a score of 60, which surprised me.  With all my different social platforms I use daily, I figured I would be in the 70 range.  After reading this Business Insider article and seeing your score, Derek, of 56-I’m feeling pretty good. With a score of 70 in mind, I am shooting to reach it by the end of NMDL. I want to reach it for personal satisfaction, and I guess a tour in my hometown Google wouldn’t be too bad.

CEO Joe Fernandez’s theory that “the whole world is changing from being page-based to people based"  is exactly why a startup like Klout is going to make gargantuan advertising revenue.  Along with companies interested in the raw data that Klout is collecting about consumers like me, is marketing gold.  Knowing who your consumers are, and essentially how popular or influential they are, helps you to target your campaign dollars.  Also the idea of "Earned media" which is “essentially word-of-mouth advertising on networks like Facebook and Twitter” is something that is  becoming so powerful within our personal circles , that with leverage from Klout can be used to benefit companies and producers.

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I'm not really sure what Klout's segment of the social media market is. I understand that many of the different social networking sites like to form partnerships with each other enabling cross sharing, but there isn't any actual sharing done on Klout. How much stock do companies put in the Klout of celebrities, or other companies? I've noticed it's very easy to increase Klout on Twitter, just by becoming engaged with as many people as possible. How many companies actually use Klout as a CRM tool? I just don't necessarily think that Klout is an essential tool for people trying to advertise on social media, and that those resources could be allocated elsewhere.

Klout is a new term for me. Until last Saturday social media was just a way for me to talk to my sister who lives in Italy. Social Media has never been a big factor in my life. Yes, I have all of the common networks, but using them is rare. Sitting in class made me open my eyes and realize that social media can actually be a big factor in my life. By using Klout, you can compress all of your social media networks into one and the site ranks you on how much you use all of your networks. Once I did this, I literally laughed out loud at my score. I knew my score was going to be low, but a 38? Come on.