Sam Woodfin's Micro

Making Klout Sing

I'd like to start this post off by saying "Everyone is using Klout!" But that's not true. The grand majority of the people I interact with on Twitter are not using Klout, 'though some of them should be.

At first side-long glance,  Klout seems more like another social media ego stroke than anything actually useful, and there is some truth to that first impression. But it's not the whole truth. Klout is fun, if for no other reason than some of the things it suggests users are influential about. It has listed me as being influential about moms--which I get--but also about pizza. And, really, the only influence I have in that realm is that I can make it disappear rather quickly.

My areas of influence listed in this screenshot from my Klout profile aren't exactly accurate, either. I like Glee, sure, but I'm not exactly family-friendly, and when it comes to writing, I'm really just bitchy about the bad stuff.

Even more fun is checking out what realms of influence your friends hold. (See the search bar in the screen shot? You can use that to pull up profiles for other Twitterers, whether they've signed on for Klout, or not.) One of mine--not signed up for Klout--would probably be thrilled to know that Walmart is amongst her areas of expertise.

But Klout doesn't end with goofing on yourself and your friends, or even on their algorithms. They also have a little thing called "Perks":

Perks are exactly what they sound like: Perks! Rewards and opportunitied afforded Klout users based upon their influence. For example, Perks listed at present include $10 to spend at TheClymb, Red Bull MOBILE handsets, $25 credit to ScoreBig, and more. (Most of which are full. Most of which I probably wouldn't qualify for, anyway, but you might!)

As inconsequential as a bit of social media fun with benefits might seem, Klout has become genuinely important. According to Thoughts from an 8pm warrior:

Klout is an example of a Web 3.0 technology. It is being used by computers and people to decide if you are newsworthy, important enough to get a free upgrade in Vegas, or skilled enough to get a job interview. There are many ways to use it.

Yep. Job interviews. Klout is being used to determine is people get them or not. Further:

Last month, Klout had more than two billion (2,000,000,000) requests for information from all of their partner development organizations. That’s an incredible amount of information!

So, what in Tartarus does all of this have to do with singing?

Nothing. But it does have to do with Opera. And with my love of stupid puns.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Opera browser--and, I wish it weren't the case, but I know some of my readers have never heard of Opera--it has a built-in, and oft-copied (by extension writers for other browsers) feature called Speed Dial:

Speed Dial traditionally only served as easy, visual access to whatever pages you chose to add to it. But then Opera became extensible. And Speed Dial became extensible, too. And, now, there's Klout Speed Dial,  an extension which not only allows easy, visual access to your Klout profile, but also shows changes in your Klout directly from your Speed Dial page.

Klout Speed Dial is an easy way to keep up with your social media influence as determined by Klout. It's a time-saver, too, since your scores are right in front of you every time you open Speed Dial.

And that's the reason for this entire, long-winded post. If you're an Opera user and a Klout user, you need to know about Klout Speed Dial. If you browse the web, you need to know about Opera ('though my primary recommendation would still be Firefox for some and Chrome for others). And if you're engaged in social media, you need to know about Klout.

Opera 10.10 Beta: It's All About the Widgets

At least it is, for me. I still have Opera 10.00 installed, and I'm still using it for things like writing this blog post. But when Opera Software tweeted, today, that it was now possible to run Opera widgets without running the browser, itself, I was quick to download the 10.10 beta.

The reason for my enthusiasm was simple: I keep JavaScript turned off in Opera, and in Opera 10, the widgets wouldn't work without JavaScript being turned on. In Opera 10.10, this is a non-issue. As I write this, I'm running Opera 10.00, with JavaScript disabled, and I'm running a 10.10 Twitter widget simultaneously.

I've also run that widget all day while surfing with Firefox, and it's now my favorite way to access Twitter. Other than going directly to Twitter's site, this widget is the lightest way I've found to tweet, retweet, reply, search, and send direct messages.

Liberating the widgets from the browser -- sort of; regardless of running independently from the browser, the independent widgets won't run without the browser installed -- was one of the best things Opera could've done. I've uninstalled Twitterfox/Echofon and Forecastfox, added touchtheSky to my widgets, and found that this move by Opera even helps me to improve Firefox's performance! 

There was a problem, though. These Opera widgets are installed through the 10.10 browser beta, as you might expect. They are not, however, managed through the browser. They can be launched directly from a desktop icon, which is good. But how the Hell do you uninstall them?

I spent a few panicky -- and a little bit pissed off -- hours asking myself that question, until I finally found the widgets in XP's Add or Remove Programs control panel. Not that that's such an unusual place to uninstall things, but Opera widgets? Really?

In the end, I got over the pissiness of not being able to delete widgets where I'm used to deleting them, and once that was out of the way, I went back to just enjoying my new, lightweight, kind-of-independent Twitter widget.

Will I keep 10.10 installed, though? Well, that depends on if I have any panicky moments involving Opera Unite.