What's your Klout?

Image via CrunchBase

Klout.com, the website that claims to measure ones “klout” or influence on the web. They manage to do this through some fancy algorithm or other magic means. There are the critics of the site and the site has often being controversial in some of its Klout weightings. Just recently Justin Bieber – he of teenage pop fame – was recently surpassed by President Barak Obama of the Untied States of America.

It would seem odd that the man behind the most powerful country in the world has only recently been rated the most influential. Why only now? Klout is all about web presence and not your real-life day-to-day influential people.  So this is why people like Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber can be rated influential, because they have a very high web presence.

When I signed up for my Klout account within two days I had a score of 47. This is apparently pretty good. How I got that score I have no idea. I have a number of friends that are professional writers and bloggers, they get paid to be on the web. My score was considerably higher than theirs. Klout.com have just recently changed their algorithm and this seems to be working better now.

I like the concept behind Klout.com and it feels great to brag to people already using Klout if your score is higher but you do feel like an idiot when discussing your Klout score with someone that has no inkling of what you are talking about. You just get a blank stare and can almost hear the persons mind going “Klout score? He needs a clout against his head!”

There are a number of features to Klout such as being able to nominate who influences you and you can earn more influence in different categories as you get more “Klout” but I am not sure how it all benefits someone? I get that it is a nice metric to view a person’s influence on the web but why? Is it going to help a student get a job if he says his “Klout” score is 56, maybe if he is applying for an online product review blogger position but does it make a difference for an engineer?

Some other nice features are the “Perks” you can earn – mainly US based though – but nonetheless maybe one day the perks will be available outside of the US. Another nice display is where you fit in with your influence, your Klout Style, you can be a conversationalist to celebrity to thought leader. My style has changed three times in the last week though.

Overall, I think it is yet another nice website to play around on. Out of curiosity it is fun to build your score for bragging rights but from a business point of view I do not see the value until it starts to measure brand value then it may have some marketing spin-offs. It seems to be another form of social networking that you will need to deal with on your day-to-day social chore list. Check Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, Pinterest and now your daily check of the Klout Score.

Related articles

• Klout Update and the Ongoing Democratization of Social Influence
• Klout Revamps, Delivers Reality Check
• New Klout Feature Lets Users See Most Influential Posts
• Bad News For Bieber? Klout Unveils Redesign And A Scoring System That Looks At Real World Influence

9 ways to kill time on the web

Sitting at the office, bored? Wish you could do something other than stare at the desk or eagerly await some random e-mail being sent to you? How do you kill the time between 9-5 every day. Well on those boring days here are nine potential boredom relieving things to do.

1. Lunchtimers - an interactive space where you can try make up words using fridge magnets or just annoy people trying to write their own words by moving the letters around each time they place a letter. When you are bored its the little things that count. Play here.
2. Fractal fun - this oddly addictive, mind numbing site helps for a couple of minutes. Click on a box and see it divide into four black or red box and repeat and repeat. Check it out.
3. Kittens - for some unknown reason looking at cute pictures of kittens seems to lighten up most peoples days. Check out the random kitten generator
4. Probably the most addictive form of boredom relief is falling sand. You can divert four streams of sand and add fire, water, earth to your creation and go wild without getting your hands covered in sand. Play here.
5. Sticking with games why not try the vintage styled Stackopolis. The aim of the game is to stack, stack and stack some more. Let me stack.
6. A website I personally enjoying visiting is Kongregate, game designers get to upload the games and you get to play new games just about every day. It's a win win situation. Play now.
7. You are bound to be Facebook anyway so why not play some Angry Birds. On Facebook you can directly challenge your mates and even brag if you bet their score. Let me hurl some birds.
8. For those that are not into gaming, how about some mental floss? This site offers a random collection of stories from the around the web. Get lost on the web.
9. Ever StumbledUpon something? Check out this site for other sites that fellow web surfers have stumbled across.

There are boundless items on the web to starve the boredom beast but the above should get you through a boring day at least.

Facebook's Timeline

Image via CrunchBase

Facebook has launched their new timeline visual approach to their user profiles. Initially I was not taken with the new lay-out but I have since begun to like it. It is certainly a big change from the existing profile lay-out. The lay-out of old seems to be so bland and boring now.

A nice feature on the timeline is the cover. This graphic is like the book cover to your profile and is a nice big space to show a picture of whatever you want compared to the small profile picture we have had for so long. It is still good to see the profile picture has remained but does take on a slightly less important role now.

The rest of the page is divided into two main columns by a dividing line, representing the passing of time, hence the timeline look and feel. This allows to include milestones or life events and you can record your life’s history easier than ever before.

All those links you used to have on the left hand side of the page have not disappeared they are just displayed elsewhere. There are now a couple of tabs displayed just under the cover picture. These tabs can be expanded by clicking on the little down arrow on the right hand side. What this means is that only three tabs will be displayed at any given time. This gives a bit more life to your profile as the tabs rotate through.

If you have a post that you wish to make more prominent you can select the post and highlight it. This will make your post appear across the entire page and give it more presence.  Also posts that have more comments / shares get a bigger portion of the page. It is a nice way of seeing at a glance which post got the most action.

The timeline is now available to those who have Facebook pages for their businesses or other reasons. The mandatory cutover date is 30 March 2012 to the timeline for pages. The timeline for pages will affect businesses in a big way.

Business will be able to place more branding images on the page now, think of a big Coca-Cola image on the cover picture and the bottle of Coke as the profile picture. Businesses will be able to make use of the milestones feature by way of promotions, specials, product launches. The will be able to build the brand better and engage with customers.

The ability for a page admin to take a message and turn it into a private messaging session with a customer will allow far deeper communication than ever before. Marketers will need to re-think their strategy on which tabs display above the ‘fold’ as this will be the first thing customers will see when landing on the business page.

It should all make for some interesting changes in the way we see people’s lives and businesses unfold in real time. Let me know what you think of the new Facebook timeline on my facebook page TechNOBLEgyIT.

Related articles

• Facebook launches timeline for pages (sujithselvan.wordpress.com)
• New Facebook Page Timelines Are Here (socialfresh.com)
• Facebook brings Timeline to brand pages (technologytell.com)