Some people love Klout, while others are in doubt. But, the fact of the matter is that, in the end, all this talking about Klout is … good for Klout. Apparently, in 100 million ways. At the very least, when it comes to social media influence and reputation, Klout is hard to ignore. Even if, like Alexia, one believes that no one really gives a damn about your Klout score.
Well, thanks to Josh Constine’s legwork and research, we bring you another solution. Enter the snark-ily named Flout.me, founded by Pat Nakajima and Anoop Ranganath. In the duo’s own words: “Sites like Klout try to tell you how important you are. That’s ridiculous! Only you know how important you are. Flout lets you flaunt it to the world.”
Yes. If you find yourself less than desperate to share just how influential you are on social networks and you’re sick of all the social media grandstanding that’s become a byproduct of Web 2.0, look no further. Flout.me allows you to give yourself your true score, whether that’s 9000+, 6, or -31. Right now I, personally, am feeling about -34. But tomorrow’s a new day.
As Josh said (and I find myself in agreement), Klout is currently working in overdrive to become the method by which we measure influence on the Web. Some might say that we don’t really need a decimal-style ranking system to intuit influence. Robert Scoble really just needs Google+, for example. Of course, one day in the future, Klout may just become that thoroughly useful tool with accurate and deep diagnostics, but until then, Flout.me may just provide that viable alternative we’ve been waiting for.
In the meantime, I’m going to get busy designing a way to convert Klout scores into virtual currency so that we can trade those scores on an open, free Klout market. (In an update, it looks like a startup named Wahooly is taking a touch of my advice, with a focus on startups. Check it out. Kinda cool.)
But, for now, go ahead. Set your social influence score with Flout.me and flaunt it. Because, after all, rules are made to be flouted.
For more on Klout-related news, here’s Josh’s story on Vitrue’s Klout integration and Sarah’s post on how Google+ may just be improving the Klout-osphere.
https://twitter.com/#!/jkcallas/status/139168229506547712