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Lithium Technologies to Acquire Klout

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Re: Lithium Technologies to Acquire Klout

#21

Post by inthewoods »

gamache wrote: post #14
minimaxir wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Klout was the first modern "love-to-hate" startup. It's the proto-RapGenius.

RapGenius is a bad example. Their product (crowdsourced lyric annotation) obsoleted other lyrics sites almost immediately. That they had to play the dirty SEO game is unfortunate, but not surprising, given that they were competing against a field of even dirtier sites. Klout, on the other hand, offered little more than reputation snake oil, which is why few take them seriously and the investors are lucky to be leavin…

Obsoleted is pretty strong - do you have data to support that?

Re: Lithium Technologies to Acquire Klout

#23

Post by MartinCron »

minimaxir wrote: post #5
AznHisoka wrote: post #2

Klout is a perfect example of great marketing trumping great product. Klout scores influencers, but in reality it's not that much superior to tools like Followerwonk, BuzzSumo, or Twtrland. But they came up with a score that ppl could digest, they had a memorable brand, and they created PR with the gamification of these social scores. I might be wrong, but the real value if any in Klout is that they have a bunch of d…

Klout was the first modern "love-to-hate" startup. It's the proto-RapGenius.

Rap genius acted badly, Klout inspires others to act badly. Seems like an entirely different scale.

Re: Lithium Technologies to Acquire Klout

#24

Post by bcoates »

inthewoods wrote: post #21
gamache wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RapGenius is a bad example. Their product (crowdsourced lyric annotation) obsoleted other lyrics sites almost immediately. That they had to play the dirty SEO game is unfortunate, but not surprising, given that they were competing against a field of even dirtier sites. Klout, on the other hand, offered little more than reputation snake oil, which is why few take them seriously and the investors are lucky to be leavin…

Obsoleted is pretty strong - do you have data to support that?

Have you seen other lyrics sites? They're tripod-level garbage.

Rap Genius:Lyrics Sites::Stack Overflow:Q&A sites

Re: Lithium Technologies to Acquire Klout

#25

Post by rsobers »

jumpbug wrote: post #8

I don't get it. This is completely baffling to me that this is a company worth 9 figures.

It's only worth it because someone was willing to pay it. The last chump to hold the stock before the company unravels eats the loss. Early founders and VCs have cashed out long before that. It's an unfortunate game, selling dreams instead of substance.

Re: Lithium Technologies to Acquire Klout

#26

Post by benologist »

bcoates wrote: post #24
inthewoods wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsoleted is pretty strong - do you have data to support that?

Have you seen other lyrics sites? They're tripod-level garbage. Rap Genius:Lyrics Sites::Stack Overflow:Q&A sites

That's not what obsoleted means, and subjective. When all you want is lyrics and the lyrics are the same across all sites the sites themselves are pretty interchangeable.

Re: Lithium Technologies to Acquire Klout

#27

Post by pbreit »

nlh wrote: post #17

One thing worth noting, for those that are questioning the "sanity" of this or asking how Klout can be worth $100s of millions, etc: "...a mix of cash and Lithium private stock..." So take any publicized valuations with a very very large grain of salt. It's fuzzy at best to value a deal based on the stock of another company which itself has a valuation based on the fractional investment pricing of 3rd party VCs. (Not…

Lithium is pretty late stage so the stock value is probably close to reality.

Re: Lithium Technologies to Acquire Klout

#28

Post by vertex-four »

benologist wrote: post #26
bcoates wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen other lyrics sites? They're tripod-level garbage. Rap Genius:Lyrics Sites::Stack Overflow:Q&A sites

That's not what obsoleted means, and subjective. When all you want is lyrics and the lyrics are the same across all sites the sites themselves are pretty interchangeable.

Depends. When I'm looking up lyrics, I'm looking them up to try to figure out what they mean. Before RapGenius, the only decent crowd-sourced lyric meanings site was SongMeanings. RapGenius, on the other hand, has a much better interface for allowing the community to pick apart songs, without any of the shady stuff (on the site itself, at least).

Re: Lithium Technologies to Acquire Klout

#29

Post by inthewoods »

bcoates wrote: post #24
inthewoods wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsoleted is pretty strong - do you have data to support that?

Have you seen other lyrics sites? They're tripod-level garbage. Rap Genius:Lyrics Sites::Stack Overflow:Q&A sites

Doesn't matter if they're garbage - the point raised was whether RapGenius has made other lyric sites obsolete. So far, we've heard opinions from people, but I've seen no data to support the theory that these sites are now out of the game.

Re: Lithium Technologies to Acquire Klout

#30

Post by inthewoods »

vertex-four wrote: post #28
benologist wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what obsoleted means, and subjective. When all you want is lyrics and the lyrics are the same across all sites the sites themselves are pretty interchangeable.

Depends. When I'm looking up lyrics, I'm looking them up to try to figure out what they mean. Before RapGenius, the only decent crowd-sourced lyric meanings site was SongMeanings. RapGenius, on the other hand, has a much better interface for allowing the community to pick apart songs, without any of the shady stuff (on the site itself, at least).

All great - but not proof that RapGenius has obsoleted traditional lyrics sites like azlyrics.com or metrolyrics.com.
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