The way the People Ranking category is perceived is broken. That makes me sad. Klout did themselves no favors when they rejigged their algorithm. I wonder if Klout screwed-up (and turned many people off the category) or are people screwing up more?  I feel it’s more the latter.

People get personal. People talk about ego. People see these tools for their flaws. They miss the good. They miss the fact that it’s an emerging category.

People focus on the fact that people will try to game their Klout Score. My response. Get used to it. The first rule of gaming – people will try and game any system. It’s the Influence Tool’s job to counter these gaming actions. Measuring influence is not easy. It’s not a done deal. It’s an evolving science. So we should expect change.

Taking a leaf from Jane McGonigal’s book “Reality is Broken”, I see these tools as fast-feedback mechanisms. In a world that generally doesn’t give fast-feedback that’s a good thing. Ask not “How important am I?”, but rather “How can I Improve?”

Influence tools aim to capture “best practice”, so others can emulate. They help you improve. Influence tools identify who is doing it right. FYI – I don’t think that’s Justin Bieber , but that could just be me! If 18 million people unfollow me, it’s a risk I will have to take!

One company will still be the clear winner, despite all the emotional fall-out and people sensitivity. It’s software.  This is business. It’s not personal. Big money is at stake. A winner takes all game!

While Hubspot was first in the space with Tweet.Grader.com , they got caught napping. Hubspot saw Tweet.Grader as a feature to help market their inbound marketing platform. Meanwhile Klout saw the market opportunity for people measurement. As a result Klout became the early darling in the space. They had a lot of early fans, me included.

Their Netflix like recalibration of Klout’s algorithm and a general sense of arrogance (just my personal impression),  has seen them losing the hearts and minds war lately. A number of high profile individuals publicly cancelled their Klout profile. Kred is now giving Klout a serious run for their money. I always like a 2-3 horse race. I like PeerIndex too. It helps to keep everyone competitive.

While we all wonder about the right and wrong of Influence Measurement, the battle goes on. Kred, Tweet Level, PeerIndex, et al scramble to displace Klout’s crown. Human influence measurement is a greasy pole to climb. And there’s no denying Klout has a big lead.

Here’s a really useful longer list of tools in the Social Media Metrics space by @stevenhealey

So my big question - why not focus on the positive?

• How can you learn?
• How can you glean best practice?
• How can you improve your ability to communicate and influence.
• Who are your role models?
• Who’s rocking the influence game?
• How can you share what you’ve learned?

Now that’s a way to gain influence in the real world. What say you?

Do you need proof that people Love Metrics? Really! This is not going away. This model has played out time and time again.

Pages: Google Page Rank, SEO MozRank, Facebook Likes, Google +1 etc

Traffic Ranking: Alexa.com Compete.com

Companies: Dun & Bradstreet Rating , Nasdaq Stock Prices etc

Blog Posts : Post Rank (now part of Google)

I could add a whole host of examples for rating locations, venues, place etc. It’s a done deal. Man will add metrics to everything he touches.

Proto Credit :  squiffy via Flickr & Creative Commons

Nick Kellet (143 Posts)

Nick is co-founder the social curation platform Listly, that combines crowdsourcing, content curation and embedable lists to drive high-level community engagement, live inside your blog posts. Connect with Nick on Twitter · Linkedin, Facebook and G+ and follow his writing via his other guest posts and on his blogs at NickKellet.com and blog.list.ly