If Wired is to be believed, one's Klout score is serious business.
Now, what is the ethical dimension?
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3 comments:
I gotta hand it to them – it’s a genius marketing ploy. Not that I’m at all comfortable with it.
The internet was supposed to be a marketplace of free and diverse (though not always articulate) opinions. Now it’s becoming a popularity contest that affects our real-life social standing. We might be perpetrating brands and ideas that we have no strong feelings for, all for the sake of gaining that coveted Klout score. I imagine this would affect the way we communicate with each other, too; it’s hard to take word-of-mouth recommendations seriously if there’s always an incentive for “freebies” in the back of someone’s mind.
Nothing new, though. Our lives have always been driven by capitalism. It makes sense that it would become a driving force behind social media as well.
My Klout score is only 16, by the way. I’m actually okay with that.
Well said. Young Mr. Kane agrees with you. Yet anything that isn't downright immoral that gives me a reporting edge.... I want to have that edge. We will continue to inquire into whether not kultivating klout has its use.
On the contrary, I think having a higher Klout score would give you less of a journalistic edge. It implies that you cater to popular opinion just for the sake of maintaining your internet cred. It also implies that you check your Facebook and Twitter accounts way too often.
Remember: Justin Bieber has a higher Klout score than Hillary Clinton. I really don't think people with higher Klout scores are necessarily respectable human beings.
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