Klout

In the early 2010s, your Klout score was a status symbol. People used it on their resumes; some companies even used it as a hiring filter for social media roles. High-scorers were given 'Klout Perks'—free stuff like Audi test drives or luxury hotel stays—simply because they had high digital reach. The 'Ego-Economy' and the Backlash Klout essentially tried to turn the internet into a high school popularity contest. This created intense 'Klout anxiety' for some and deep resentment for others. Critics argued that the score was easily gamed: you could inflate your score simply by engaging in meaningless 'follow-back' loops or spamming hashtags. By the time 2014 arrived, the novelty had worn off, and the brand had become a punchline for the excesses of 'Silicon Valley douchebaggery.' The Lithium Acquisition When Lithium Technologies bought Klout for $200 million, they weren't really buying the website; they were buying the Influence Engine. They wanted the underlying code that could analyze millions of social signals to identify who was talking about a specific brand. Lithium integrated these algorithms into their B2B software, helping companies like Microsoft or Comcast identify which customers to prioritize in their support queues. The Final Sunset By 2018, the consumer-facing Klout.com was a ghost town. With the implementation of GDPR in Europe, maintaining a massive database of social scores for individuals became a legal liability. Lithium CEO Pete Hess announced the shutdown on May 10, 2018, stating that the time was right to 'sunset' the standalone service to focus on their core enterprise products. The Legacy While Klout is dead, its spirit lives on in every 'Influencer Marketing' platform used today. It was the first company to prove that digital social capital could be quantified and traded for real-world goods—paving the way for the multi-billion dollar influencer economy that followed.