Klout is running out of excuses.

Klout is running out of excuses.:

“We think we have the opportunity to own earned media,” Fernandez says. “Earned media” is essentially word-of-mouth advertising on networks like Facebook and Twitter. It’s the ability to get people talking about brands because they want to, not because they are paid to.

“We put products in the hands of influencers and the influencers create noise around it,” Fernandez says.

Am I the only one that doesn’t think this sounds generally good? Klout is making up scoring it knows will always be flawed solely to attract brands to pay it to reach those people so they can feel better about the quagmires of finding influencers who matter.

This is not a company in adolescence, it’s a hollow, cynical venture trying to make millions of dollars by pretending to solve a problem.

Disclosure: I just started working with a company that solves the tangent to this problem in a much more sensible way. This post, however, is as much influenced by that relationship as I am by the time Ray-Ban sent me a towel.