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Opt Out of Klout Now

shkspr.mobi

11–20 of 103 posts

Re: Opt Out of Klout Now

#11
No, I am not going to opt out.

1. A system in which I personally have to contact every scammer that had the same idea is not a system I wish to accept and play along with.

2. By going to their site and authenticating, I have proven to them that I am a) an active user and b) there is a chance they may hold some power over me by collecting my data. While they may make a "promise" not to store my data, they can toss the list of opt-out users over the wall to another "entirely different" company which also collects my data and now sees fit to prioritize me. I don't know about this other company, so I can't opt out. See 1.

3. As nochuck13 said: Their Facebook opt-out auth demands access to your friends list.

Re: Opt Out of Klout Now

#12

What's up with all the drama? These arguments hold true for any service out there. Nowadays, it's almost like everyone is actively trying to find reasons to hate everything. How is that productive? Nothing stops you from sharing rumors without creating a big movement around them. Being part of a boycott doesn't make you more important.

For me, it was because it wasn't an "opt-in" service. They will create a profile for you and advertise your "klout" whether you ask them to or not.

That's what angered me about it, anyway. I opted out a looong time ago and encourage everyone else to as well.

Re: Opt Out of Klout Now

#13
post #11

No, I am not going to opt out. 1. A system in which I personally have to contact every scammer that had the same idea is not a system I wish to accept and play along with. 2. By going to their site and authenticating, I have proven to them that I am a) an active user and b) there is a chance they may hold some power over me by collecting my data. While they may make a "promise" not to store my data, they can toss the…

Seeing this as anything but an elaborate scam is quite hard.

Re: Opt Out of Klout Now

#15
We have been employed by how well we market ourselves for at least two generations now.

It's no longer about our skill in our work, but by how well we market ourselves. You can see this when you see people doing jobs they are unqualified for, or just plain bad at.

Social networks, including Twitter double as self marketing tools. Klout exposes this clearly. For some, under the guise of "keeping up with friends" or "keeping abreast of technology", it's a clambering to the top of the ladder of the "self-marketeers"; either socially, or in industry.

I beg people to consider, is that really the pinacle of human existence?

Re: Opt Out of Klout Now

#16
post #8
post #6

http://imgur.com/vn27Bf6 This does sound like a bait-and-switch from Klout, but I don't understand the appeal of networking for networking's sake.

Heh! You got me :-) But, in seriousness, with those buttons you can see the reach of that post on each social network. It would be fairly trivial for you to verify those numbers are correct and to come to your own conclusions about whether my blog has "influence". I'm not against badges per se - but I don't like an obfuscated way of calculating something.

Given that I know very little about Krout, perhaps you could explain why you participated in the first place. I don't wish to sound rude; I'm genuinely interested in what exactly you did, and why you thought it was worth doing.

Basically, can you expand on: "A vaguely plausible "score" that you can use to justify your "investment" in tweeting all day long."

Thanks

Re: Opt Out of Klout Now

#17
post #10

As a founder of a company in that same space I would like to add some nuance to this blog. Putting it as simple as scoring people and helping you sell back the data so you can improve your score is to simple. Scoring, ranking and sorting people is important for the future of the web. It's comparable to Google's pagerank. You need some sort of analyses/score/rank to value the content shared by someone. But with pagera…

Google provides a service: finding content on the internet. We want pagerank because it (presumably) returns quality answers to our questions.

Klout and companies like it (and presumably yours) don't add any value. I can already find people just fine through Twitter or Facebook search. Klout scrapes my data, applies some formula and then tells everyone it means something and tries to convince people I don't know that this number tells them something about me, while trying to convince me that I should do something about that number so that strangers will think better of me.

I already have a job thanks. Klout is not providing a service or adding value. Go away.

Re: Opt Out of Klout Now

#18
post #10

As a founder of a company in that same space I would like to add some nuance to this blog. Putting it as simple as scoring people and helping you sell back the data so you can improve your score is to simple. Scoring, ranking and sorting people is important for the future of the web. It's comparable to Google's pagerank. You need some sort of analyses/score/rank to value the content shared by someone. But with pagera…

I wonder if services like yours won't just perpetuate and strengthen the so-called "superstar" effect.

It's a feedback loop where a few people at the top reap all the rewards for being at the top already (and being "recommended" to everyone else).

I'm not interested in having Robert Scoble or Michael Arrington recommended to me, I already know about them and am not interested in following them.

I'd like to know about much lesser known people who've made very useful technical contributions in their fields (instead of prima donnas). So far, I've found out about these people from mailing lists, github profiles and perhaps hacker news, not ranking algorithms.

Re: Opt Out of Klout Now

#20
post #5

Klout: "To opt out of Klout, please verify the you are the owner ... Note that we request only the bare minimum information provided by Twitter or Facebook for authentication." Facebook: "Klout Opt-Out would like to access your public profile and friend list. " I've never done Facebook OAuth. This isn't really the bare minimum is it?

It is. From https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/login/public-...: "When a user logs into your app and you request no additional permissions, the app will have access to only the user's public profile and friend list."
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