Social media measurement platform Klout announced that its parent company, Lithium Technologies, has decided to shut the service down at the end of this month.
The platform that graded peoples’ social media influence with a score of 1 to 100 was acquired by Lithium Technologies in 2014 for $200 million.
It is now being shut down because “Klout as a standalone service is not aligned with [Lithium Technologies’] long-term strategy,” says CEO Pete Hess.
To all of our fans: after careful consideration we have decided to shut down the Klout website & the Klout Score. This will happen on May 25, 2018. It has been a pleasure serving you, and thank you for your ongoing support over the years. Details here: https://t.co/xCNdYachxF
— Klout (@klout) May 10, 2018
It was never clear what went into determining a Klout score, but that didn’t stop techies from touting their klout when the opportunity arose. While some saw it as a reason for bragging rights, others saw it as more of a punchline.
Arguably the only tangible benefits that came with having a high Klout score were perks like free products, discounts, access to exclusive events, and so on.
Lithium sounds as though it’s pleased with the acquisition, saying Klout provided the company with “valuable artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.”
The CEO goes on to say that Lithium is planning the launch of a new social impact scoring methodology based on Twitter.
While nothing about it was mentioned in the company’s statement, it’s interesting to note that May 25 is also the deadline for companies to comply with GDPR — the new European data privacy rules.
