Bad News For Bieber? Klout Unveils Redesign And A Scoring System That Looks At Real World Influence
Klout, the site that aims to measure your online influence, has made some big changes to its scoring system, and it has a new look to match the new algorithm.
Context & Ripple Effects
Klout has spent 2012 defending what its number actually means: Brian Solis argued in March that Klout and PeerIndex measure engagement rather than influence (Klout and PeerIndex Don't Measure Influence), and April brought the 'Klouchebag' mockery of score-chasing behavior. The company had already pushed scores into the Twitter timeline via a Chrome extension in 2011 and monetized them through perks like the confirmed Cathay Pacific SFO lounge partnership.
The redesign announced August 14, 2012 is Klout's answer to that credibility gap: rebuilding the algorithm around real-world influence rather than pure social-graph activity, with a new look to match. The pickup was broad — Business Insider, AllThingsD, GigaOM, PandoDaily, ABC News and others all ran the story the same day — signaling that the influencer-scoring category still commands mainstream attention even as skeptics question it.
First-order effects
- Every user's score gets recomputed under the new methodology, so accounts built on large follower counts with thin real-world footprint — the 'Bieber problem' the headline gestures at — face visible downgrades.
- Perks partners like Cathay Pacific now have a moving eligibility bar: lounge-access thresholds tied to Klout scores will shift as the algorithm reweights who counts as influential.
Second-order effects
- Rival scorers such as PeerIndex, already lumped together with Klout in the Solis critique, are pressured to match the real-world-signal pivot or cede the 'actual influence' framing to Klout.
- Brands running Klout-targeted campaigns must re-validate their influencer lists, since the population above any given score threshold changes overnight.
Third-order effects
- If real-world signals become table stakes, influence scoring drifts toward requiring verified offline identity and data partnerships — raising privacy questions and deepening dependence on the major social platforms' APIs.
- The perks economy around scores hardens into a de facto credentialing layer for consumer marketing, which keeps alive the debate about whether such numbers measure anything real.
The trend: Influence-scoring services are racing from raw follower counts toward real-world signals as they fight for legitimacy and brand-marketing budgets.