What's Klout About?

Klout.com recently received $8.5m in investment to develop its social influence ranking tool. Using social media accounts such as Twitter, the folks at Klout take your followers, retweets, followback ratios and various other metrics into account when they decide your worth to society online. If 2011 is the year of influence then isn't that a bit depressing? The lovely dreamworld of the internet being a place of equals, replaced by the real world of some tweeters tweeting more equally than others. I suppose by recognising and ranking the influential we are addressing the elephant in the chat room. It is just that ranking formalises the hierarchy, and will result I fear in a widespread adoption of more mercenary and self-serving approaches to sharing online, not to say that we are devoid of them already.

And of course we are now obsessed with Listening In, and keeping an ear out for buzz whilst thinking 'if 'comte4059' is the biggest influencer in the cheese market, how can we tap into him/her?' (Dodged an Andy Gray shaped bullet there). For brands this is useful, as we must strive to find out the value of the conversations surrounding them online. However, I simply don't think that an influence grade point average can do anything but create a smug and superficial oily layer on top of the already murky landscape of social media.

A question about influence that i posted on the much derided Q&A site Quora turned up some interesting responses. I asked for '5 tips to becoming a social influencer on Twitter'. The majority of answers were built around the idea that in order to influence, you have to listen first.

Some things are as true online as they offline.

The second biggest book after the Book of Revelations

What? The Zuckerberg's boy from number 19? He'll never amount to anything.

Fogeyish Hypothesis

On the tube on the way home last night, a late middle aged inebriate started a conversation with me. 'Is that one of those iPads?' Self conscious that my wankiness had been named, I admitted that it was and tried to force the conversation towards an awkward silence. Not so lightly. 'I wanna know what she's reading' mumbled the man as he gestured towards a young lady sitting opposite us. The lady in question was leafing through a huge tome, a biography on Jean Rhys. My neighbour continued, 'I can tell that you like it, because you're making lots of tiny notes all over it. Must mean something to you'.

'Indeed it does' replied the lady softly, 'I'm writing my PHD on her'. What ensued was one of those brief, cordial but wholly unexpected conversations that are simultaneously unusual and pleasant. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the conversation about the work iPad was far less interesting. Of course I could have read about Jean Rhys on the old iPad, but who would have been able to tell that I wasn't just playing Angry Birds?

A couple of years ago a friend of mine wrote on the Picador publishing blog about the solidarity in seeing someone read the same book as you whilst traveling about in London, and yesterday's tube experience worried me that soon we will be stripped of that improbable connection, that in a couple of years, our eReaders and tablets will help us carry the anonymity or rehearsed personality of the internet to the signal free depths of the London underground.

Kit Ka(r)t

Tom Gibson, my esteemed predecessor and I have just had a wee chat about the video embedded above. He raised the good point that without a successful explosion in popularity of the video content then the installation wouldn't have been worth executing at all. I have to say that I agree with him. Whether this video is exciting enough to do the rounds is somewhat doubtful, but nevertheless it raises some interesting points.

I would say however, that for the little cost involved, creating many small projects like this is the best way of ensuring that some of your work achieves the viral success you are looking for. The chances of getting it right every time (without spending much money) are slim, so little and often might just be the best approach. Also, I would hesitate to dismiss the power of profoundly affecting the small number who have engaged with the work in the real world, as the potency of their interaction is likely to start conversations.

Also, harking back to a previous post I wrote on the role brands have to play in the arts, I would imagine that even if Kit Kat paid nothing (which I highly doubt) to take part in the exhibit,then they will have generated fantastic PR for an exhibition in a time when they need all the support they can get.

Honk if you hate domestic violence

Here's a lovely upbeat campaign to ease you into the working year. It is, as you've probably guessed, an augmented reality app that shows a woman being punched in the face. Not exactly sneezing panda, though I think we can all agree that domestic violence is a bit of a no no.


However, the app/print integration is a lovely exercise in possibility. The print work intrigues, then the video hits home, so that when combined the message really packs a punch (nb i deliberated taking that pun out).


This is almost definitely a clunky use of the technology, as by the time you've downloaded the app in order to see the video, it will make Avatar seem like a 3 minute wonder. But, when the phones have the readers built in, then we could potentially see the reinvention of print as the gatekeeper to fun digital oojima whatzits, tempting us in, and through the contrast of the stationary and the kinetic, giving us to more to play with.



Thanks to @ddlp for sharing.

Simple, Selfless, Universal

2011 'tis upon us. I wonder what exciting titbits it will hold.

By now the majority of people will have seen this, but i thought it was worth a quick post. Schweppes have created an app that allows you to customise your Facebook profile by creating a sort of triptych that stretches across the page, segmenting the photo you choose into a stylish skin for all to see.

For its simplicity, the application has a potentially universal reach, drawing from the global culture of Facebook rather than any localised trend.

I can't imagine this cost a fortune to develop, or took an enormous amount of time, but it feels like a gift. It is not prohibitively branded, nor conspicuously targeted. This, in my opinion, is great digital work. It understands people's efforts to use social media as a megaphone for personality, and gives them the tools to express themselves in a different way.

Schweppes is a brand that I haven't (perhaps unreasonably) associated as being particularly modern, but this gesture brings me closer to them. They know that we like to share stuff, and that perhaps more importantly we want to show off.

Look what Jon Yang did? I like Jon Yang now. Do you? That's what he wants.