Many of us who spend time online look to measure our impact. Whether it be page views, visitors, number of followers, Facebook Likes or any other measurement that is out there we all, as human beings, like to know we are doing the right things and impacting others. Yours truly included.
One of the most recent additions to the landscape when it comes to measuring influence on others is Klout. By measuring your True Reach (how many people you influence), your Amplification (how much you influence those you influence) and your Network Impact (the influence your network has) they devise a Klout score that measures your ability to move information and have it spread by others.
Earlier today Klout revealed that their scoring method has changed to create what they believe is a more accurate reflection of your impact. Now this change coming was no secret as Klout has blogged about it in the past and assured most Klout users that their scores would not change or possibly go up. They admitted there would be drops, mine in fact has dropped 11 points with this scoring change, and it is starting to appear that quite a few users are experiencing a drop in their Klout score as this change is implemented across the Klout community.
If you take a peek at Klout’s Twitter timeline you can see that most of the tweets they are responding to relate to users who have seen a score drop.
If you do a Twitter search for klout score you will see much of the discussion concerning users score is about the drops that have been experienced with this new algorithm.
According to Klout this is the distribution of score changes:
So their comment to say most users did not see a change and some even saw increases fits in with this chart however, reaction is all about perception and the current perception across Twitter is that the majority of users had their scores fall.
Now ultimately this score does nothing for me because it is just a measurement. It does not get me any additional revenue for the site and there is no monetary connection to my score. There are many people out there who are not even aware that Klout exists and their day is continuing down the same path as when it started. They have no idea that their Klout score has dropped, stayed the same or increased and they are just getting on with things.
Maybe after it is all over we should all move along as well. As a friend has said to me before “It is what it is”.