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At today\u2019s LeWeb London conference, Alexia Tsotsis of TechCrunch interviewed Joe Fernandez, Co-Founder & CEO of Klout<\/a>.<\/p>\n The company rates people\u2019s online social influence, and some real-world organizations are now using the rating to determine how to treat their customers, with perks for those with the highest status in the hope that they will praise the experience. Attendee Serta\u00e7 Doganay<\/a> revealed, for example, that he had been invited to the LeWeb because of his Klout score of over 70.<\/p>\n Fernandez explained that the company\u2019s goal is to \u201chelp people be recognized for what they are influential about,\u201d and he claimed that it is providing a valuable service in a fast-changing world.<\/p>\n \u201cThink back ten years. Competence on PC used to be a critical life skill. Then it was being comfortable on the internet. Now being effective on social media is a critical skill, and we\u2019re helping people benchmark their effectiveness\u201d.<\/p>\n As might have been expected from the author of an article called \u201cNobody Gives A Damn About Your Klout Score<\/a>,\u201d Tsotsis didn\u2019t give Klout an easy ride. She subjected Fernandez to a slow roast of pointed questions that attendee Adam Tinworth<\/a> called \u201cthe hardest grilling I\u2019ve seen at a LeWeb conference in over five years.\u201d<\/p>\n The dual started with Fernandez warily circling the question about whether a Klout score actually represents anything useful. \u201cIs it just BS?\u201d asked Tsotsis. \u201cAre you just a PT Barnum, with a random number?\u201d<\/p>\n Fernandez replied: \u201cI think about it like this: a Klout score is the tip of the iceberg. It\u2019s easy to understand, very consumable, but the challenge is that it doesn\u2019t tell the whole story. You also have to include what people are influential about, what geographic region, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n But the more Fernandez talked about the multidimensional nature of influence, the more he seemed to be saying that people shouldn’t take their Klout scores too seriously, which prompted some unsolicited advice from Andrew J Scott<\/a>: \u201cWord to the wise: BEFORE going on stage make a list of questions you’d hate to be asked. Then work out how to answer them.\u201d<\/p>\n Tsotsis discussed the \u201cKloutApocalypse<\/a>\u201d episode last year, when Klout made some big changes to their algorithm that appeared arbitrary to many users. This generated a lot of user anger and Tsotsis read some of the plaintive feedback out on stage. She questioned whether this power should be in the hands of a third party at all: \u201cIsn\u2019t it way to much control over people\u2019s sense of self-worth?.\u201d<\/p>\n Fernandez replied he thought that it was inevitable for some third party to do it, insisting that social rating is a valuable service that requires somebody who can draw data from multiple sources. In reply to the question about power, he used a line could have come straight out of Superman movie: \u201cWe have great responsibility. We have to be accurate and transparent, and we need to give people appropriate controls, and we need to continue to work on that.\u201d<\/p>\n Tsotsis\u2019 next question: \u201cWho doesn’t think it’s stupid when you +K people?” resulted in a rumble of recognition in the audience. Joe positioned the ability to give a +K as a\u00a0 \u201cform of gratitude.\u201d<\/p>\n Several people clearly thought that Klout \u201chad it coming\u201d for the controversial effects they have had on social media. Jeremy Wilson<\/a>: \u201cAlexia appears to relish slowly saut\u00e9ing Klout. I’d be doing the same.\u201d<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s fair to say that Klout didn\u2019t win the audience over, with reactions on Twitter such as<\/a> \u201cbefore this interview, I thought Klout was bullshit. But now I think I seriously underestimated just how much bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n