New Klout is out, but has it improved?
On the 6th Feb 2014 the new Klout was launched with the hashtag #NewKlout.
I recall creating a blog post when Klout had its last major overhaul in Aug 2012.
Has the new Klout improved with today’s update? Did they make changes to the algorithm? Can we still dish out +K to people who influenced us? Are there more changes on the way? Read on..
The process to add +K seems to have gone under the radar, but Klout insist it is still there. We can still give +K by searching for a user and then rolling over (and clicking) on one of their topics.
What has disappeared from Klout this time?
The functionality to see lists of members by Klout Score and topic has disappeared. Klout has launched many things that it later killed off. Do you recall the Klout achievement badges? Two years ago I created a blog post about those colorful badges long since killed off.
Create and Share great content
This is the biggest change by far for new Klout, especially so since it is the first item you see when you login. You can also navigate to this section via the “create” menu option, which is the top item in the navigation, with the link where you can view your score now moved to the third position.
Klout describes this section as “helping you to find great articles and posts worth sharing with your audience. Unlike most apps that suggest content for your personal consumption, Klout intelligently recommends content that will strike a chord with your unique set”. Did it switch you on?
You can add your own topics to those that Klout has recalled from the previous interface. You can review the articles and select the thumbs up or down bottom to indicate what you want to see more of and less of. You can see the source, date and category of each content item.
Where does Klout get the content from and how do they know if it fits your network? Klout currently monitors posts from a mixture of social media (like Twitter and Facebook) as well as a hand-curated list of thousands of RSS feeds from diverse publishers with whom they do not have financial relationships. By combining their natural language processing technologies with their understanding of you and your audience, Klout recommends content that is topically relevant and predicted to resonate with your audience.
Content can appear with a label so you get a feel of how new it is. All the content articles look new, so I wonder what extra impact the labels will have?
This is an interesting move to supply curated content. If you have a high Klout score it is likely that you already share content. So adding this section might be a driver to get more time spent in the Klout site itself and a reason to come back more often? We shall see over time if this has the desired effect. There is no advertising on the site, but the Klout Perk program is still alive and kicking so maybe the create section might help with the visits to the Klout Perk page? Maybe obtaining better quality perks might have been a simpler idea if that was the aim to have more return visits? We shall see!
Scheduled updates
You can also schedule posts. The interface first asks you what timezone you are in.
Here is piece of content I selected to share and I scheduled it for my Twitter account.
The tweet was sent out on time, and looked OK. See it here. Notice that the scheduled tweet used a Klout short link.
Measure
The Klout score information has now been moved to the “measure” menu option. Not many changes here. You can still see a list of the posts that contributed to your score, but they are no longer labelled “moments”. I had previously described Klout “moments” in detail soon after it was first introduced.
You can also see a breakdown of your score.
The activity shown in the measure section contributes to your Klout Score. Only you can see this information. Activity should appear within
72 hours.
Settings
In the settings section you can review your connected networks as well as change your email address used by Klout and a few other choices are available there.
Has the scoring algorithm changed?
The simple answer, no.
Are more changes on the way?
The simple answer, yes. I quote Klout; “over the coming weeks we’ll be launching tools that help you with original content creation and provide deeper insights into your impact on social.”
New Klout – In summary
Klout has tried a few ideas over the years. From achievement badges, to moments and the +K. Now we have the most simplest interface yet. Lean and mean with the addition of content that Klout users can share. A few will no doubt look to the fact that there were no changes to the scoring algorithm as a missed opportunity. There are many shortcomings which are still yet to be addressed, like not having self hosted WordPress blogs available as a connected account type contributing to the scoring.
My view is that the interface is less cluttered and less gimmicky. Will they add the Klout Cinch question and answer appliation in a future update for all countries? I have answered a few of those Cinch questions via the former Klout website but I cannot install the app unless I am in a country where it is supported and it is not shown anywhere on the new site. Will they address the longstanding issues with the scoring? Do we all still care anymore as we have all found other ways better placed to measure influence than one numerical score. We shall see.
// Buffer
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