How to influence Klout

How to influence Klout. A few weeks ago I'm guessing a month or so I discovered a nifty little tool called Klout.com it measures your influence more like measuring the interaction between you and your followers and following and being the little geek who likes a bit of social experiments I put it to the test and guess what it passed and I give it a clean bill of health for being wanker proof i.e. coarse language for saying it's the real thing.

When I first learned of Klout Score I was using Hoot Suite another nifty little social gadget I would recommend, my review on that may be later … so once I got into the site I realized my Klout score was 31 from a scale of 1-100 that's a lot but what bothered me was that it was slightly higher than I expected compared to other tweeps I might have considered influential at the time, so I just had to find out what made Klout tick.
First I registered and read what was there to read about influence matrix and algorithm used, this felt more like when I was researching on Google… Speaking of Google I was shocked by the accuracy of Klout's influential topic list; mine at the start since I’ve refreshed it quite a bit, were:
I’ve stated each with a reason but how they knew me I'm yet to accurately determine.
Here they are:

#Insomnia – I was an insomniac when I first started tweeting so I could guess that topic really pin point my initial tweets and sleeping habits.

Google – I hardly tweet about Google but all the same those few tweets were able to sell me out as a Google power user/addict i.e. my search history calendar is dark green and I have surpassed the 1K search mark for my account in about 6 months. I’m an enthusiastic Googler I guess

#followfriday – yap in the beginning I used this to get lots of followers simply mention a few influential people and the tweet would be Retweeted like @RevRunWisdom quotes (exaggeration I hope you notice) you got to love how people Retweet their FF recommendations.

#ak – ak stands for Access Kenya a local ISP which I can almost swear I’ve tweeted very little about but this shows how much I love Kenyan ISPs… not.

My second experiment was to check whether if I unfollowed tweeps I would get a better Klout score so I did, bye bye Kenyan Celebrities and all those normal people who don’t follow back and most of all those Unfollowers who I have been very patient with. Using another neat tool called justunfollow. Guess what my Klout score dropped nkt. Then it was time to start refollowing this people again talk about going prodigal for the sake of science or just curiosity.

Third experiment was is the influence matrix the same for others. I had to test some few accounts e.g. my fake account for one and surprisingly it’s ranked as an “Observer” surely those geeks knew what they were doing when they wrote those algorithms it seems.

Then some social experiments:
I would tweet something and see who would respond to it having already targeted some followers and guess what my bait got some birds (tweeps) for example I could tweet about an Operating System, Linux, just to see which of any followers would be attracted to the topic and they fell for it hook, line and sinker those were my fellow techie tweeps I was targeting who happened to be web developers and Linux users guess I do have Clout.
Then my play list; I could alter my play list according to the Celebrity influencers of some tweeps especially in the rock category, we rockers love our music and I also tried it on some pop lovers too. Lady Gaga, Good Charlotte sparked some conversations and a Metal Core band also did with the exact tweeps Klout said they were influenced by these artists. I was like wow this is power right here.
What does having Clout on twitter mean well for one Clout influencers are movers I know because I have been influenced by tweets and if Klout can come up with a standard for this influence that’s pretty cool.

Just a side note or disclaimer I’m not a professional in social media this was just a note so don’t fear me I’m not always testing people that’s just wrong. I like trying out new concepts and ideas especially in tech just being me.

Doing What I Love

As I was seated in the computer room at school I found myself asking myself is this what I want to do in future, seat in a office somewhere in front of a screen or is there something else that I would want to do.
Strange how we are give vast amounts of time to figure out such questions but somewhere along the line we tend to find our selves asking this question. What could possibly cause such an unplanned future yet we have had months, years or decades to ponder upon and come up with a designed path. Then I remembered why I choose my career – Exposure. Drawing from my memory banks I can remember a small child being taken to the airport. Yes amazing planes and hardware there but what caught the boys eye and heart wasn't the planes the stunning looking pilots, no it was different.
On my first trip to the air port I hardly saw the planes as anything more than machines parked somewhere in the runway or hangers. Just big chunks of flying metal, nothing more – doesn't every kid want to become a pilot?
As my mum guided me past the gates away from the noisy run way we went to the offices. In those days only big companies had access to such machines that the rest of us normal wananchi only marveled at – computers.
At first I had little interest in the movements on the screen (which I came to later call screen savers) but soon they hypnotized my senses and immediately a spark of curiosity ignited a flame of passion to know why and how!
Soon the mouse was on hand as I mimicked the busy looking guy a few desks from me and the world of computers came to light. I can remember little of what happened then but I knew it excited me. To say the truth I'm sure I did nothing of use that day, if you can call opening countless windows an achievement then I have some credit there, but it wasn't what I did that counted it was what happened long after this that counted.
My first exposure to computers at an early age although for a few hours changed a lot in me and whenever I get such doubt in my mind I remember that first encounter then I know what I'm doing is right coz the 8 year old me told me so and I trust his judgment till today and most of all I'm doing what I love.

Strange twist of fate

Just had an important heart to heart with my room mate about our past lives. It all started with a question about a friend. "they look up to you." he said or asked I couldn't tell the difference but something about the question really haunted and struck me as wierd is that he was right - they did. Ever since I aced my finals ppl have put me in a certain light. Guess I should start by explaining how this exam business started. The year is 2005 November if I can remember correctly. The rest of the school where I attended my primary education had broken off for thier end of year break leaving the candidates to seat for their finale paper in primary education. After all that preparation that is what it boiled down to 5 days Monday to Friday, 7 papers which could probably alter our feature. There was a kid he was average and had a strong belief in the sin wave rule - pass one exam fail the next so he felt good because he had majorly flopped his last exam. But something went wrong fear and anxiety griped him in the moment of truth - exam day. No this was no normal case of exam butterflies no for he had a history of stomach ulcers this proved to be quite a challenge for him. Between the vomiting sharp stomach upsets and dizzyness the exam was perfectly timed for his doom - he lost it. Nothing that the jog around the pitch could do to lift the curse, he was bound to fail and he knew it. The nurses magic pills did nothing for him but something did that he could never imaging would help - a song. Seated for his first paper half asleep an angel song a song to his ear. A beautiful song that the boy could have sworn to be crystal clear and in perfect surround sound.

#NowPlaying Evancene - Bring me to life

Immediatly the boy realised it was futile to care and with the angels voice in his head he woke and did his paper. Now his hand taken over by another more calm mind - not his own. Soon he was done he could remember little of what just happened but soon he did and it was good.

Having given out that little passage I guess you could already see that I had selfesteam issues long before I sat for my exam so it was no surprise to me. But to the rest of the more expectant crowd it was a shocker, how the boy was finally cought up. So some of them deemed him hopeless but whether he is up to him his angels and noone else.

Random reader

Just from reading a fantastic blog which is now becoming my favorite the author I have no clue of his identity and my spidering abilities have only led me to register in dozens of Manga sites he seems to pop up in - definition of spidering refer to earlier post (twitter).

The World of Chiira

So here it is on his post "we must read" I came to relate it with my life so far. I have hardly any literacy experience with a good novel in high school and my guess thats why so far my mind has felt so numb unused unchallenged and worse off getting ideas and thoughts of any kind has become a chore on its own.
Hey don't get me wrong I do think but nowadays I do it differently less efficiently if I may say and I attribute all this to my lack of reading over the past few months (or years not so sure).
Ok reading NEVER entails just course work material but ANY thing yes any thing. Sounds wierd but just head the blog post The Ruler Of Chiira has put up then you'd understand what I mean - WAIT don't go yet seeming that I already got your attention thus far I'd like you to wait before you ditch this blog post.
I read Harry Potter thats why I became smart. I remember my primary school teacher confiscted my book after I was found reading it before a landmark exam (just a week to my finals to be specific) but I couldn't put the book down! Something about it felt like a haunting - and it felt good. Just by reading something unique I could feel my thoughts become more clear my expressions of emotions came to be more eloquent. While going through the book I could feel my brain telling my mind "finally we could have an intelligent conversation with you" yes the two are separate in my view.
So every time I read something new I could feel my mind growing I could feel myself maturing thats why I loved the library in high school so much! The strangest thing about that is that I enjoyed that type of old almost archaic (very old library deserved the name archive) knowledge for no apparent reason.
I was a general knowledge seeker all irrelevant info between the dusty books was precious to me and now I have come to that conclusion we need to read to survive not just course material but anything even if it's a Harry Potter before exam just be happy and learn.

Blog commenting

So far all the blogs I've commented on have shown a lack of etiquette on my part. Blog commenting to me is sort of like your in a literature class discussing the set book or any book for that matter. Some people chip in what they understand while others comment on the work. I'm the former totally lost guy who didn't comment but just said what he understood from the text. So far thats criminal coz once I'm done with my 'comment' and I look at what I contributed I realise it's useless meaningless info that hopefully no one would notice (but they do) I wish blogs had that damn delete button like fb. So even after feeling strongly for a subject I'll tend to keep of comments for a while (showing my lost teenage side ain't helping my future). If someone may want to see the blogs I've damaged just look for a blog with a sucker who links his comments to his twitter page and is called Kirembu smh.