[ThomPete]

Ok trying to make sense of this,

So Lithium I understand. They make social media monitoring, analytics, management tools make sense.

Klout on the other hand? Besides it being a joke for most of us it's also I guess a huge database of potential customers and some smart engineers.

So Lithium paid $200M for a primarily some talent and a giant online rolodex?

Hmmm

[thrownaway2424]

The numbers are just made up. The article says "mix of cash and private shares" but let's face it, that could mean $10 in cash. Lithium acquires Klout by giving Klout shareholders some fraction of the combined Lithium+Klout entity. Then they value the combined entity with an arbitrarily high number until everyone seems happy. This inflation factor is written down on the balance sheet as "goodwill" which is later reduced in value from billion of to zero dollars. Nobody is really harmed in this process.

[boomzilla]

And everyone involved gets a huge clout inflater in their resumes :)