Klout revisited: Is Beta-Klout getting any better?

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on Klout. In the meantime, Klout updated to Beta-Klout – yes, that’s right, they are back in Beta. I thought that deserved an update.

First the good news: since my previous post, my Klout score has risen to 48. I’m not quite sure how, as I did not change my Twitter habits, but I am now officially a Specialist. I also added my LinkedIn profile today, and according to a Klout message my score should rise over the next days as a result. Let’s see about that. I must admit that I have been using LinkedIn far longer than Twitter, so I’ll keep you posted.

As to topics: Klout has now determined I am influential on Human Resources, Video and Slideshare. I am glad to see I made Human Resources and lost the Recruitment topic, but it’s beyond me how I got the Video and Slideshare topics assigned. Fortunately, you can now go into the Topic area and remove the ones you think are wrong. This is an improvement as it gives you more control over your profile.

In Achievement, I earned a Klout OG badge, but the only reason I received that is because I joined Klout in an early stage. The other achievements are based on a certain number of listings, retweets and mentions.

On to the Score analysis, one of my biggest gripes in the previous post. It still is. Here’s an update on the comparison I made between myself, 2 friends and Mashable.

Just like the last time, it’s unclear how the score is computed – Mashable has gained large numbers compared to my last post, but the Klout score remains a solid 87. I guess once you’re up there it’s not so easy to improve your score. Compared to May, my gains were mostly in the area of followers, mentioners and retweeters, but nothing substantial – just a case of adding some every week. Friend2 is back from his holiday, but has not picked up tweeting as before, so a marginal improvement. Even though Friend1 picked up additional followers, mentioners and retweeters, his score has not changed over the last 6 weeks.

So here it is, my main issue with Klout – it is still as obscure as before how the algorithms work. And that means that there is no way of knowing if Klout score in any way reflects your online influence.

In the meantime, I still like Tweetreach as it shows you how far your last 50 tweets travel and which Twitterers are getting you publicity.

And I gave Peerindex a try. My score there is 55. I like Peerindex because they are clear on what gets measured: Activity, Authority and Audience and have no subcategories. Just like Klout, Peerindex is hazy about the algorithm behind your total score and that’s not good. Peerindex lets you compare yourself to others, just like Klout, and you can invite others to join Peerindex. Peerindex has its weak points – the list of “People you talk to most” is outdated, and has names that I recognize from a few months ago, certainly not from my last months of tweeting.

What is cool about Peerindex is that you can search people by topic. I don’t think Klout offers this feature, at least I have not found it there. Peerindex also mentions that they use 120 days of Twitter data due to Twitter limitations. Now I wonder how Klout works around that – or are they simply not telling us that this limit exists? Another nice feature of Peerindex is that you can update your sources – Peerindex will show you when they last refreshed them and allows you to start a refresh yourself. Peerindex also lets you to add up to 3 websites to your profile and your Quora profile.

One last remark about both Klout and Peerindex: when you want to connect them to your Facebook profile, they try to get it all: permission to post on your pages, access to messages, etc. There is no need to be so greedy, so I will not connect my Facebook profile to these services.

I am going with Tweetreach and Peerindex for a while. I will continue to check-in with Klout, just to see what happens when they’re out of beta. And if anything worth mentioning happens, I’ll update this post.