[alain94040]

I disagree. My beef with Klout is that it measures authority using the wrong sources. I keep giving a real-life example[1] that everyone gets wrong. My friend is a Vice-President at Google. He doesn't tweet (he has better things to do, frankly). His Klout score is -- none --. Somehow, I believe he is more influential than me :-)

I did write an influence algorithm for a previous startup in which that same friend was getting a great score. So it's possible to get it right. Klout doesn't.

What Klout gets right is self-promotion: twitter addicts will tweet and retweet their influence, thus promoting Klout. Smart play by Klout.

[1] http://blog.foundrs.com/2011/08/18/why-klout-sheds-no-light-...

[diego]

The point is that "authority" or "influence" without context doesn't mean much. Your friend is Vice-President at Google. So, how influential/authoritative is he in the world of sports? How influential is Roger Federer in the tech world? Would you rather have Ashton Kutcher as an investor or, say, Paul Graham?

One number won't tell you the information you need to answer these questions.