Great news today about our portfolio company Klout: TechCrunch reports that the company is getting a strategic investment from Microsoft and Klout will have a two-way data relationship with the Bing search engine.
This means you’ll see Klout scores in Bing results, and Klout will use Bing data in determining Klout scores. For example, when people search for you in Bing, your Klout score will go up.
The reason Klout was able to get a deal like this done is because they have a lot (a whole lot) of data on people. This data, along with the fact that they remain a neutral party working with all the giants, allows them to create a sort of Page Rank that tells others how influental you are in given areas.
See my post from August with more thoughts on why we invested.
When you forget all the weird perks people get for having a high Klout score and the sometime hilarious errors that the young service sometimes makes in assigning Klout, you can start to see the real power of the service. Big, big data. And useful.
The easiest way to see this yourself? Download the Klout for Twitter Chrome extension and see people’s Klout score as you interact with them.
Congrats to Klout and Microsoft. This is a good partnership.
See the Klout blog for more.
Uncrunched 
Doesn’t this create a false reality? If somebody searches for me on Google – which is arguable more used than Bing, than it means that I “reputation.” But that won’t inflat my Klout score. Only if the partner search engine is used. This might not be a good partnership for the Web.
Exactly! But for those who believe in the Klout score it’s an additional layer to the emperor’s new clothes….hear yee hear yee
I guess this is good news for Crunchfund as well! Congratulations!
I guess this is good news for Crunchfund too!
So one can easily write a script that searches for a name on Bing and boosts the Klout score. I know, you say that Microsoft can build something to detect fraud. Let’s say I believe you. If one is somewhat sophisticated, use a server farm or the cloud to do many searches at random times, from varying IP addresses. This is not that difficult and you better believe SEO firms will charge a fee to boost your Klout score just like you can pay for Twitter followers.
its great for Klout! but I really don’t see sustainable growth for the concept. Its a great investment provided it is exited at the peak. I maybe way off the mark…I hope I am 🙂
> the fact that they remain a neutral party working with all the giants…
Is there a list of these giants? With only Bing mentioned, I am not sure how this would be neutral.
Klout. You are a lot like that chick in mean girls trying to get everyone to say “fetch”