Klout Just Turned Into A Social News Reader

Klout just got a big redesign. Head over to Klout.com now, and you’ll see a page encouraging you to “Create and share great content.” The change is billed as being about “creat...
Klout Just Turned Into A Social News Reader
Written by Chris Crum
  • Klout just got a big redesign. Head over to Klout.com now, and you’ll see a page encouraging you to “Create and share great content.”

    The change is billed as being about “creating content,” though as far as I can tell, it’s mostly about sharing stuff. It gives you a news feed of stories tailored to what you supposedly have “klout” in, and then you can share them on Facebook or Twitter, or schedule them to be shared on Facebook or Twitter later. Other people’s stories, that is. You’re not creating here, unless you count creating a Tweet or a status update (though you can also create Tweets/Facebook posts from scratch).

    But that’s what Klout’s all about. Get some “mad klout” for sharing something interesting that you came across. With this set-up, you don’t have to come across anything, because it comes to you. It’s a news reader personalized to you but for your followers. It’s about content not necessarily that you’re interested in, but that people who follow you are interested in.

    Klout chief product officer Sanjay Desai announced the change on the company blog, saying that the new Klout is the first step towards its vision of helping people be known for “what they love.”

    “The ‘Create’ tab helps you find great articles and posts worth sharing with your audience,” explains Desai. “Unlike most apps that suggest content for your personal consumption, Klout intelligently recommends content that will strike a chord with your unique set of friends, fans, and followers. Helpful tags highlight fresh content that is starting to trend as well as items that closely match the interests of your audience members and are likely to resonate with them.”

    So in other words, you’re so well-respected in your industry, you don’t even have to be able to be good at finding interesting content. Just let Klout decide what it thinks your followers will think is interesting. Now that’s clout. You can add whatever topics you want, so that’s helpful.

    “Klout’s new platform also allows you to schedule your posts so they can be delivered when people are actually listening,” Desai adds. “Thanks to the Klout Score, you can then measure and track your impact.”

    The scoring algorithm remains unchanged, the company says.

    Klout says it will be launching more tools to help you with “original content creation” and gain deeper insights over the coming weeks.

    Image via Klout

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