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Obama Finally Beats Bieber Fever According To Klout
Thanks to a change in the way their algorithm works, Klout says that President Obama is finally more influential the Justin Bieber. The company now examines more "real world" factors such as the information in your LinkedIn profile and data from Wikipedia entries. From the article: "The overhaul, which began in January, was part of the company's effort to address critics who pointed to Bieber as a prime example of why quantifying online influence was, at best, irrelevant. The teenage pop singer, with his army of 26 million Twitter followers who retweet his every word, had a Klout score that dwarfed that of the U.S. president."
The misspelling in the first link..
What were you *thinking*?
A generic number is a horrible measure.
Ultimately, the information Klout is trying to analyze all comes down to marketing, and for that, Klout needs a specific audience to measure influence with.
If I was running a fashion magazine targeted towards females, I would want to tell advertisers I have influence among women ages 24-45, with a certain amount of income, who are interested in shoes and bags. That's going to be different than the influence I have among male libertarian tech nerds, but unfortunately, Klout doesn't know the influence specific separate audiences (probably a billion combinations of different audience profiles), which is important now that marketers are targeting more specific niches.
I think nothing more needs to be said...
Looks like they already knew the result they wanted, then they changed the algorithm until they got that result.
I can understand posting important political stories. But Obama vs Bieber on Klout? Are you serious?
Klout is a terrible company, nothing more than a money machine from extending high school style popularity to the web, based on idiotic metrics and raking profiles without people's consent.
Charlie Stross called them "the Internet equivalent of herpes" and that's exactly what they are. Lets not extend their influence further.
Dilbert RSS feed
I feel like I am an alien from another planet trying to understand this strange human society.
1. I had no idea who "Bieber" was until I read this article. (He seems only to be popular in primarily English speaking Countries, I guess mainly only the US. This is supposed to be an international site, I thought, so they should at least put his first and last name together.)
2. I never heard of Klout, and I guess even most people in the US never have, even slashdot visitors, so maybe perhaps someone should explain that in the summary.
3. I know who Obama is, but I don't know how or why he would beat "Bieber" and since I didn't know what Klout was, I didn't know if "According to" meant "as announced by..." or "following the rules of...", etc. Assuming it was sports, I would assume the second one and be wrong.
4. Trying to sound cool by using words like "fever" in the headline just makes it more confusing. "Beiber Fever" could be a disease, for all I know. It sounds like it is. But Obama beat it, so I guess he's in recovery now.
So at best, this header read to me as:
Obama finally beats xxxxxx Fever according to yyyyyy.
Jesus christ. Back to Slashdot.jp for me! At least the headers make sense...
... as the embassy storming is cooking up an international storm, I'm afraid that Julian Assange gonna be ahead of both Obama and that young chap who criticized Prince William's hair, or rather, the lack of it
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Some teeny popularity contest site (because, frankly, the internet and "popularity" on the internet has much of a highschool) thinks that some pop singer is more influential than the leader of the pretty much single superpower in the world, and how said leader (who may or may not have the "hearts" of some people but sure has the firepower to break some of them or convince them, depending on what happens first...) is "finally" more popular than said whistle buoy.
This is news?
Well, this just in: Matt goes out with Amy and her boyfriend Tim is really pissed about it and plans to ask Mary to go to the prom with him! More about this after the film at 11.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Klout is a terrible company, nothing more than a money machine from extending high school style popularity to the web, based on idiotic metrics and raking profiles without people's consent.
You see, there are quite a few of us who are out of work and completely unemployable in our chosen fields because of the many many reasons that have been stated ad nauseum here on Slashdot.
Anyway, my point is, seeing horseshit like this may spur one of us to do something like this to make a living and pay off our student loans - yes, folks with CS degrees also have student loans that they are having to live with.
So, what I'm saying is, if I thought of this myself, I would have done it in a heartbeat. And I would LOVE to come up with a "money machine" that is made fun of on Slashdot. And I would read the criticisms here on Slashdot and cry all the way to the bank and then interview some other poor bastard that's been out of work for a while and see if I can use my new found wealth to give him a break and get him back into the workforce. You see, unlike everyone else it seems who want "geniuses" for even the grunt work, I could find a place for average coders/designers and at the same time keep costs down because I don't have to pay 6 figures for every position - which happens when you insist on hiring the best for every position. And I wouldn't have to bitch and moan about not being able to get anyone "qualified".
But that's me - I'd be a socially responsible businessman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_popular_than_Jesus
Popular culture is a lot more pervasive than some things we think are more important. Get over it.
http://xkcd.com/1057/
--
Id like to apply for a job as edtior of Slashdot. Ive pissed primary school english so im perfectly qualified.
Or maybe I should apply as a continuous improvement specialist. I'll join Slashdot and fire all the editors. It's not like we were paying them to do anything anyway.
The Bible left out the annoying twerp horseman but the rise of Justin Bieber just proves the Mayans were right and it's the end of times. How that boy band reject could be considered more popular than the President is a sign of how decadent we have become. Come on even Bush Jr and our current Congress should be thought of higher and our Congress is rated lower than the guys that club baby seals. We should all be afraid, I'm not talking zombie apocalypse afraid, much, much worse. At least zombies just make you want to shoot them in the head. Bieber and our Congress make us want to shoot ourselves in the head.
The social media analytics company now sucks in 12 billion bits of data every day from social networks including Facebook, Google Plus and Tumblr, up from 1 billion just months ago.
What a bad place to use 'bits'. So either they only collect 1430.51 MB of data per day, up from 120 MB...or they actually collect several billion pieces of information.
It's downright sad what passes for a /. story these days. Klout is bullshit. Nobody on this site cares about Beiber. This is little more then an online pissing contest.
Slow news day has been taken to new epic highs with this garbage.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
If you receive a buyout offer, take it. Your value is only going down.
What a disappointment. Hacker News has more of the stories that should be on Slashdot.
If your scoring system doesn't show Our Dear Leader as the best, change the scoring until it does, because obviously Our Dear Leader is the best.
Deer thegarbz (1787294),
Yew mispeled "skool."
Sincerly, the Slasdot staff
No one defeats the Beiber! Unleash... The Bieberconda!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It will be a sad day when politicians pander Bieber for a political endorsement. It will be even a sadder day Bieber endorsement makes a difference.
who gives a shit about Klout except Klout?
This is plain an simple marketing, and it is below the former editorial standards of Slashdot.
Boo! Hiss!
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Klout is nothing more than a shitty measurement of an idiots' e-peen. As a rule I unfollow anyone on Twitter that sends out a Klout-based tweet.
Klouchbags!
Both are equally prepared to run the country.
Got Code?
The first thing we do around here, when we get a new resume, is to check the klout score. The closer it is to 0, the more likely we are to keep the darn thing. If this wanker spends the time needed to improve his internet influence, then he is can go waste someone else's time.
I will not live in a country where the president has more moxy than a random mop-headed stage performer.
Oh wait, no... never mind.
-AI
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion