Klout Acquires Local And Mobile Neighborhood App Blockboard
Flush with new capital, Klout, the startup that measures influence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare, Google+ and other social apps, is making its first acquisition. Klout is purchasing mobile and local neighborhood app Blockboard.
Context & Ripple Effects
Klout had raised $8.5 million in 2011 to build its social-influence measurement business; buying Blockboard turns that financing into its first capability acquisition. The move fits a broader local-social consolidation pattern that included LocalResponse's purchase of Philo and Loopt's earlier acquisition of GraffitiGEO.
First-order effects
- Klout gains Blockboard's local and mobile neighborhood-app capability, extending its product footprint beyond measuring activity across third-party social services.
- Blockboard becomes part of Klout rather than an independent local-mobile app, while Klout deploys its new capital in an acquisition.
Second-order effects
- Local-social players such as LocalResponse and Loopt face a better-funded Klout entering the overlap between social identity, mobile activity and local communities.
- Klout's customers and social-platform partners gain a potential path to combine influence data with location-oriented user activity, subject to how Klout integrates Blockboard.
Third-order effects
- The deal points to social-data companies using acquisitions to assemble complementary mobile and local capabilities rather than relying solely on a single measurement product.
- If this acquisition pattern persists, differentiation in local social services will depend increasingly on integrated identity, activity and neighborhood data rather than stand-alone apps.
The trend: Social-influence companies are expanding through capability acquisitions into mobile and local contexts where user activity can be more actionable.