My Last Encounter With Klout and Al . . .

Reading today's New York Times article on Twitter and Klout, I wasn't sure whether to laugh, or cry . . . Unbeknownst to me, and millions of other users of Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, we are being scored in increasingly sophisticated ways on our influencing power. What started as a fresh social movement is now at risk of being perverted by the lure of money and the trap of power hungry egos. 

As an experiment, I signed up for Klout and was told:

I have an overall score of 47 and I am effectively using social media to influence my network across a variety of topics. However, my Klout score has fallen in the past month and I will need to keep engaging others, and continue creating engaging content to see my Klout score rise again . . . 

I have a network influence of 54 and I am engaged by influencers.

I have an amplification probability of 23 and I am more likely to have my message amplified than the average person.

I have a true reach of 1K and I have worked very hard to successfully build a large, highly engaged network.

I am an 'explorer', meaning 'You actively engage in the social web, constantly trying out new ways to interact and network. You're exploring the ecosystem and making it work for you. Your level of activity and engagement shows that you "get it", we predict you' ll be moving up.'

I influence 1130 users across the social web. 

I am influential about meditation, buddhism, law of attraction (what the heck?), alzheimer's, spirituality, yoga, psychology, huffington post, journalism, blogging.

Just reading the stuff, I could feel greed and fear taking hold. Wanting a higher score. Worried that it might go down if I don't 'engage' more and in the 'right' way. More suffering . . . 

And I decided this would be my last encounter with Klout and al. More important than chasing after influence is the joy of engaging in authentic, meaningful, mindful, rich, kind exchanges with other like-minded people.