Why Klout Shouldn't Do Away With Perks

If you follow social media sites very heavily, chances are good that you have heard of Klout. Klout is a website that measures the influence of users across several social media platforms. This is done primarily through the Klout score, a numerical value from 1 to 100. To arrive at the Klout score Klot relies upon one's activities across such social media sites as Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Instagram, and so on. Klout was also well known for offering free services or products, known as Perks, to its users. Essentially, companies would pay Klout to do so. Needless to say, for many people the appeal of Klout was not so much in getting a measure of one's influence on social media sites as it was on getting free stuff, or "Perks".

Unfortunately for many users, Klout has decided to discontinue Perks. In a statement to TechCrunch, Eric Channing Brown, vice president of Lithium Technologies Inc. (who bought Klout in 2014), said, "Klout's real strengths lie in its algorithm and wealth of social data. Perks is not core to this, and so we have decided to invest more in other areas of Klout's data assets and on further integrating Klout into the Lithium product portfolio." Here it must be pointed out that Perks will not end all at once. Klout will honour any Perks that users have already earned, and any ongoing Perk campaigns will be allowed to continue to their conclusion.

Personally, unless it is Lithium's intention to entirely shut down Klout at some point in the future, I think they could be making a mistake in ending Klout Perks. Quite simply, I think Eric Channing Brown is wrong. Most people I know who use Klout do so for the Perks. I really do not know of anyone who takes it seriously as a means of measuring one's influence across various social media platforms. Indeed, from my experience and having talked to others about Klout, there is very little reason they should do so. Quite simply, Klout's algorithm for determining one's Klout Score appears to be seriously flawed .

 To wit, I have two friends on Google+, one with over 57,000 circlers and another with over 122,000 circlers, far more than the approximately 12,450 people who have me circled. Both are active on Twitter and one is active on Facebook (the other one does not have a Facebook account). Despite this both of my friends have always had lower Klout scores than me, even though they have far more circlers on Google+ and as a result get a good deal more engagement. Sadly, I know of others who get far more engagement than myself on various social platforms, and yet have lower Klout Scores.

Of course, I suppose that my higher Klout score could be explained by the fact that I am active on several  social media sites beyond Google+ and Twitter (I even post to LinkedIn, the ghost town of social media sites, once in a while). What cannot be explained is how one's Klout Score seems to fluctuate with no real relation to how well one is doing on social media. I have had it happen. My friends have had it happen. One has a very good week on the various social media sites, getting a phenomenal number of plusses on Google+, a phenomenal number of retweets on Twitter, a phenomenal number of likes on Facebook, and yet one's Klout Score will somehow drop precipitously. At the same time, one can not post at all for several days and one's Klout Score might actually rise. If Klout is actually seeking to measure one's influence across the various social media sites, it would seem to make sense if one's score rose when he or she was doing well (getting lots of plusses, rewteets, likes, et. al.) and fall when he or she posted nothing at all. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Anyhow, as a result of all this, most of my friends and acquaintances ceased taking Klout seriously as a measure of influence on social media long ago. Those who maintained their accounts did so primarily for only one reason: Perks. Without Perks, there really won't be much reason for such people to continue to maintain their Klout accounts. I suspect a few might actually delete their accounts, while most will probably just abandon them. Either way they won't be using Klout. Lithium may regard Klout's algorithm as one of its "real strengths," but the average user certainly does not seem to.

In the end I think Klout discontinuing Perks may be a rather grave error. Perhaps they could do so if the average person regarded Klout as providing a reliable measure of one's influence on social media sites. If Klout was respected and taken seriously by most users, it would not matter if they discontinued Perks or not. At least in my experience, it would appear that the average person regarded Klout Scores as not being particularly accurate and maintained accounts only for the free stuff. In that case, I have to seriously wonder if Lithium might not announce the closure of Klout in a few years.

Groucho Marx and Bud Abbott's Birthday

Today marks the birthday of two very funny men. It was 125 years ago, on October 2 1890, that Groucho Marx of The Marx Brothers was born. It was 120 years ago, on October 2 1895, that Bud Abbott of Abbott and Costello was born. As a small tribute to both men, is one clip each of them in action.

First up is Groucho Marx as Rufus T. Firefly in The Marx Brothers' class film Duck Soup (1933). 




Next up is Budd Abbott with Lou Costello performing their famous "Who's On First" routine. The clip is from "The Actor's Home" of The Abbott and Costello Show in 1953

Catherine Coulson R.I.P.

Catherine Coulson, best known for playing the Log Lady on the cult classic TV show Twin Peaks, died on September 28 2015 at the age of 71. The cause was cancer.

Catherine Coulson was born Elmhurst, Illinois on October 22, 1943. She grew up in Southern California. Her mother, Elizabeth (née Fellegi) was a ballerina. Her father, Rodney, was a television producer and public relations executive. Miss Coulson graduated from Scripps College with a bachelor's degree and received a master's degree from  San Francisco State University. She was teaching an acting workshop at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, California when she met director David Lynch, with whom she would frequently work.

She starred in Mr. Lynch's short "The Amputee" (1974). She served as assistant camera on The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), David Lynch's debut feature film Erasehead (1977), Moonshine County Express (1977), Opening Night (1977), Starhops (1978), The Toolbox Murders (1978), Youngblood (1978), and A Force of One (1979).

In the Eighties Catherine Coulson served as assistant camera or a camera operator on Modern Romance (1981), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Private Practices: The Story of a Sex Surrogate (1986), and Cold Dog Soup (1990). She acted in the film Trick or Treats (1982).

In the Nineties Miss Coulson was cast as the mysterious Log Lady on Twin Peaks. The Log Lady was a character who always carried a small log with her, through which she appeared to be able to communicate with some supernatural world. She reprised her role as the Log Lady in the feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) . Miss Coulson also appeared in the films Femme Fatale (1991), Another You (1991), and The Secret Life of Houses (1994). She served as assistant camera on Night on Earth (1991) and Music for the Movies: Bernard Herrmann (1992).

In the Naughts she appeared in the film Calvin Marshall (2009) and in an episode of Psych as a variation on her character of the Log Lady. In the Teens she appeared in the films Walk-In (2012) and Redwood Highway (2013), as well as an episode of Portlandia.

My Article on James Dean in Silhouette Magazine

It was sixty years ago today that James Dean died when his Porsche 550 Spyder crashed into a 1950 Ford Tudor. He was only 24 years old. Despite this he remains one of the most famous movie stars of all time. Even the average person, who may not have seen many films made before 1980, knows who James Dean is. In observance of the 60th anniversary of his death, I wrote a tribute for him for Silhouette Magazine. You can read it here.

Because We All Know What Tomorrow Is....

Here is The Eagles tribute to James Dean, fittingly titled "James Dean"