The Early Art and Science of +K

I have been running a series of experiments with +K and @klout recently. As the @kloutperks program continues to ramp up, I expect the value of topic clarity to start to sink in. Since it is relatively new, let me explain. +K doesn't up your @klout score, it increases the accuracy and potency of the topics you are considered influential about. @kloutperks are dependent upon what topics you are influential in, so this really matters. If you want the best perks, better figure out the right topic and get relevant. Here are some ways +K can increase you overall score.If you religiously engage with your followers so you know who to give @klout to, your rate of interactions will increase and your @klout will rise. I suggest a new +K best practice: I always tweet it when I give someone +K and I tag onto the end the actual reason I am giving it to the person. Here are some examples of recent tweets about +K that I gave.

I gave @winfambusiness +K about #supernatural on @klouthttp://t.co/oq1glsC for typing up that interview with Sera Gamble!

With that tweet I am alerting my Supernatural audience that I reward efforts in Fandom, that Wimfambusiness contributed something to the community thereby letting people know about her work and alerting people to content that is available, something they will find valuable. I think this is a wonderful way to use @klout.

I just gave @paleonut_ +K about #supernatural on @klouthttp://t.co/cswoKbC for working on votespn.tumblr.com

With this tag on ending I am thanking an influencer for  helping with the campaign while also re-posting the link for the still ongoing poll. Often recipients of Klout Retweet these so odds are good that while you are expressing your gratitude, you are also spreading awareness.


I just gave @foxsearchlight +K about films on @klouthttp://t.co/hiUmoDl for supporting The Tree of Life. It influenced me.


I include this tweet because it was a spontaneous one that I wrote after seeing the film, but it was seen by over 200,000 people thanks to Retweets by Fox Searchlight and a few others who worked on the film. I added quite a few followers in an industry I have an acute interest in thanks to it. Never underestimate the power of goodwill.

I've also tried other experiments. In a recent social media campaign to garner 10,000 individual IP votes in 48 hours, I decided to see if people would Re-tweet for @Klout.

I tried two variations:

Want @klout? RT This: Supernatural National Guard Activate http://t.co/K6nzTOx

Want @klout? Name your topic if you RT This: Supernatural National Guard Activate http://t.co/K6nzTOx

Using SproutSocial I was able to see which of the two was most effective. Conclusion: People wanted to choose their own topic. The second tweet was RT'd twice as often.

Earlier I had used a strategy of diminishing awards for a better return. It was very effective.

I will give @klout to the next 5 people who retweet one of my Vote for Supernatural NOW at http://t.co/GIgmHDV tweets

This seems to have been a good way to go, so I will likely combine the 2 more successful approaches next.

I plan on running additional studies using a different target audience. I hypothesize that my rates of return will be much higher if I perform a campaign aimed at @klout aware followers. To date my campaigns have targeted people who had yet to check-in to @klout but who were influential in the target area. Even so, I did get responses.

The early result of my testing proves to me that @klout already has perceived value, even among people who have never checked in. As an online influence currency, its potential can only grow provided the @kloutperks program continues to evolve and begins to make its presence known.

Review: Transformers 3D Dark of the Moon

I went to see Transformers 3D recently  for a number of reasons. 90% of audience members on RottenTomatoes liked it, while only 38% of critics did. I am always interested in creative works that have tremendous review gaps like that. As a lover of film, and someone who enjoys movies I often wonder which side I will fall on when it comes to big blockbusters. I'm also a fan of action films, a total adrenaline junkie. Really the only kinds of movies I won't watch are Horror. Not psychological horror or ghost stories, I like those. I'm speaking of what my former film professor Klaus Phillips aptly called Gorenography.
So here the visual effects alone were worth the price of admission. Michael Bay has slowed down the pace of the Autobot and Decepticon transformations and the moments of battle so you can actually follow the action with great clarity. The detail you can see in the Decepticon Shockwave is astonishing. I am posting a copy of the HD trailer and at the 2:04 minute mark is part of a scene where Shockwave is crushing a building with a  Cybertronian Driller he acquires at the beginning of the film. There are several camera angles during this sequence that are just overwhelming to the mind. I had a similar feeling when I saw Avatar, like my eyes were taking in so much incredible sensory information that my brain was having some kind of orgasm. You just sit there with your mouth slightly open at the spectacle. Luckily there's a lot of pounding bass accompanying whatever is happening to ground you. Big screen definitely the way to go and we went for the 3D. My eyes watered a lot toward the end, but I think it was because I just wasn't blinking. It would be good to rent it on digital on my computer to pause some of those more incredible shots and zoom in on the detail.

Now on to the challenges. Transformer's main problem is that the Director had complete control. It's readily apparent because it reads like an 8th grader's idea of how a modern day Hero quest should be. Not that the Director is an 8th grader, just that maybe he indulged his inner one when making this movie. I couldn't help but think it was a kind of mental masturbation on Michael Bay's part. Let's start with the character of Sam Witwicky, who throughout the movie is angry and upset and frustrated in ALMOST EVERY FREAKING SCENE. Where is the emotional range? What happened to the personality of the character? Now he's just some pissed off 20 something guy who happened to be in the right place at the right time. He has no friends, his girlfriend has dumped him, he can't find a job though he goes on interviews...in jeans. But all of that is minor and who cares right? Where we go off the rails is in the GIRL problem. I wonder what the plot was like before Megan Fox got cut. Her character had some history, her father was in jail, she was a bad girl, she had usable skills. Here, the girl doesn't really function as a person, more like a wallet, mirror, measuring stick and goal. He does LIVE with his new girlfriend whose personality consists of telling him how wonderful he is, clutching a stuffed bear and making him keep two mini autobot ex-pats outside with the dog. She pays all the bills in their shared apartment, oh and she works in a gazillionaire's art gallery where she glides around wearing outfits that cost about 5k a pop. When Sam visits her at work he discovers her boss is none other than McDreamy aka Patrick Dempsey who seems very touchy feely with his girlfriend. JEALOUSY, ANGER. Kicking his useless crap car because the Autobots don't play with him anymore. Not long after this, she visits him at his new job in a car her boss has given her as a perk, a Mercedes S class that's worth so much money that Sam again is FURIOUS, ANGRY, JEALOUS. Through it all new girlfriend is teasing, understanding, pouting and eventually not sure she can handle this anymore. You notice I don't give her a name, because it's rarely mentioned in the movie. She's referred to as my girlfriend, or "this one" as in "you aren't going to let this one get away are you?" She is clearly a trophy and not a person, something that is only heightened when we discover that *spoiler alert* Patrick Dempsey is one of the bad guys and he has been watching Sam for a long time. He hired the girlfriend to get close to him all along and she is just a bargaining chip/hostage to use to control him. This is my one big pet peeve with the movie. I wish they'd just left the female character out altogether then have her be this awful. The model that played her was beautiful, but I don't even want to be dishonest and call her an actress. No sweetie, stick to modeling. She's got that down cold.

So overall I ignored the angsty, boring personal part of the story and went with the action, epic Transformers part of the story. The supporting cast was excellent too. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that John Turturro killed  as per usual and Frances McDormand was fantastic in her brief moments on screen and then we also got the wonderful John Malkovitch as a anal retentive boss with a jones to see an Autobot. The Army and AirForce guys are back and they are exhilarating to watch. Love me some alien ass kicking, especially by puny humans with no chance of success. Game on!
So other than my massive kvetch with the whole Sam Witwicky plot line (which, come to think of it, they could have probably done without all together) it was awesome and I endorse it. My personal rating is a B-

Why Twitter?

Leaving aside the business aspects of @Twitter, how about explaining it to non-users?
Not long ago on my feed I asked my followers how they explained to people why they used it. Because you know, you still have to explain. I know many of the people who are fortunate enough to work on a team in social media or online marketing don't have this problem, because they see and speak to people every day who understand. It's their job. They have an excuse.

For the rest of us, no such luck. Articulating the basic value of Twitter is so challenging, forget describing my follow philosophy or why things like @klout will probably be important in the future. For those who have yet to adopt Twitter, no argument or description seems to sway them. I sometimes passionately describe the many current and potential benefits of Twitter to someone, only to have them look at me vacantly and say, "...yeah but I don't know why I need to leave Facebook for that." This prompted me to tweet "Facebook is the gated community where I keep all of my Twitter illiterate friends."

It feels like that. Every day I get news hours, sometimes days, before anyone else I know. Long before traditional media outlets. Why bother with CNN when you can follow feeds on Twitter while they are sourcing the material from photogs and on the ground reporters? No editing, no punditry...bliss. I describe Twitter as the world's best living magazine or newspaper where you are the editor in chief. It's great to have followers, but if you are a consumer of information, Twitter is heaven.

My ratio is always off, because I will read and interact with those I follow and with anyone who follows me, so I am careful to limit who does. It seems backward right? Conventional wisdom says I should be doing the opposite, spreading my message, trumpeting it to the world, attracting hundreds if not thousands of followers. I have things to say. I say them all day long in response to what I read. I give feedback, elevate valuable content, make connections between all that I see and share my conclusions. I have a viewpoint and a love for people and their stories. Twitter would be less for me if I could not enjoy the back and forth of conversation and quips. The instant friendships over topics that live completely in the mind. But the minute it becomes a monologue, it's lost any appeal. I don't want to pontificate, shill, or be a one liner girl. Though I confess I follow several people who are quite adept at popping out the one liners and I admire their talent. I'm just not that funny. I have a wry wit, but I'm a little too earnest for it to ever work for me.

About a year ago I taught a group of women returning to college how to use the Internet to be more successful students. This was 101 stuff for me. How to search effectively, how to protect your privacy on Facebook, how to set up and manage a group page, or run a blog. I finished my presentation with "Why Twitter?" I was already a serious advocate and no one was buying in Roanoke, Virginia. I teased them with comedy feeds, God and AlmightyGod, (Satan has few followers and is kinda boring), the Mars rover, celebrities, news, the cows on Twitter, the haiku account, every glitzy gimicky thing I could think of to see if I could register any interest. I showed them how whatever their research topic they could find an expert writing about it real time and follow them. I finished with what I think is the killer app of Twitter. That's the search and trending topics functionality. I demonstrated how it could be used to zero in on hotspots when something was happening in the world. How you could immediately start reading the words of people at the scene or those who were experiencing a cultural event. Finally, it started to connect.

So when people ask me now about Twitter, I skip all  the light razzmatazz and go straight to the point. I just tell them it's about the ability of almost everyone on the planet to be instantly connected in conversation. A kind of global consciousness. My twitter feed knows no nation. I talk about how it helped Egypt start a revolution. I talk about the rapid response to Libya and how the on the ground commentary and images streaming from twitter played a role in that. I point out that it is in its infancy and it's already had this kind of effect. Imagine what will happen as more and more people begin to embrace it. I've seen this before. People say they won't ever, and then 2 years later the adoption rate is through the roof. Email, the web, Facebook...I heard the same things from people all along the way, so forgive me if I don't believe them. I know the feeling of something that can cause a fundamental shift and Twitter is one of those things.

Even so, as I told the followers who queried me in return...most people eyes glaze over before I finish.
Ah well. One day.

How do you explain to people why you like @Twitter or why you think it's important?

The Currency of Influence

It’s no secret that the latest tool in the marketer’s toolkit is Social Media. The only fly in the ointment so far has been how to prove to the companies that are footing the bill for these initial programs that their money was well spent. They can count “Likes” on a Facebook page or see how often a viral video has been viewed, but until recently no one has been able to really quantify the “Twitter effect.” Now there are scores of tools that are trying to provide all kinds of insight to companies to help them understand what is happening, moment by moment and day by day and how it might be affecting their brand.

This is important for a number of reasons. The first for me being that the more we understand about a medium, the more creatively and effectively we use it. Second, I think it’s imperative that Twitter keep growing and for that they need funds. Using tools to demonstrate its value in ways that corporations understand can only help that continue to happen.

The mainstream media is already beginning to take notice of the two biggest  influence measures out right now, Klout and PeerIndex. Each of these tools looks at your online activity and scores you from 1-100. The higher the score, the more influence you have over others. To put it another way, if your score is high then when you speak  more people listen. Klout and PeerIndex are using slightly different algorithms to measure your activity. I have been using both for a while now and while my numbers are similar, they are not the same. They both keep track of topics that they believe you are influential about. In PeerIndex’s case, this seems to be a longer list and slightly more accurate, though you can only display five on your profile. Klout on the other hand appears to be based on what other people talk to you about. They seem to choose topics based on those topics that are most re-tweeted or liked on Facebook, which means you can suddenly find yourself to be influential about the subject in a joke tweet that has been re-tweeted often rather than say humor, which is what people actually experienced. This is a small problem I hope they will figure out. It handicaps one of the strongest offerings they have, the +K feature.

Similar to the Google +1 feature, this allows you to give out 5 +Klout a day to the people on Twitter who influenced you the most. This is a wonderful feature and the mind leaps ahead to what widespread adoption can and will do to it.  i.e., the first  5 people who RT my x tweet will get +Klout for today. Weeks away at most. There just hasn’t been enough adoption for it to become a currency yet, but soon, very soon. So herein lies the problem. Someone influences you by telling a joke. You go to their Klout page and they are either influential about nothing or influential about something completely unrelated. What do you do? Make a note and hope they get humor as a topic soon, or just give them +K in whatever is available? If nothing is available it defeats the whole purpose, right? So topics definitely need work.

It’s an interesting experience to install the Google Chrome Klout and PeerIndex apps and then venture onto Twitter. This allows you to see each user’s scores simultaneously. It’s early days yet, so PeerIndex uses an estimate for many people. If you hover over the little yellow number, you’ll see more about the PeerIndex score. It will give you the breakdown of Authority, Activity and Audience along with the 5 topics they are displaying. If it only provides zeros, you know that the number you are seeing is an estimate. People actually have to check in to PeerIndex or Klout to get the most accurate read. The Klout app will simply show you the number. If you click on either it will take you to their profiles on either site.

Once you start looking at the numbers it will surprise you how much it helps you decide who to follow, who to forgo. I say this because Klout not only looks at the ratio of follows to followers, it looks at the quality of them. If you only follow 10 people but you are followed by 100,000 super active twitter users who spread every thing you say, you are going to be in the 80ish Celebrity range. Alternately if you follow 10 people and have 100,000 followers who are people who are never active, who ignore you and generally only shill ads, you are not going to get very far.  As in everything in life, it is quality, not quantity you are looking for here.  Numbers are great, but they need to be qualified numbers to get the most out of Twitter. That applies to individuals, small businesses and even large brands and celebrities.  I un-followed a large chunk of people after discovering this, many were inactive or weren’t even people and saw my Klout score rise.

When someone follows me, my follow backs are decisions. I’m now committed to reading what this person puts out there, interacting with them, re-tweeting them and having them “on-staff” at St.Jon’s Super Stylin’ Live Magazine. I’m the editor in chief and I can hire the best writing talent the twitter world has to offer in any field. I get my news before most anyone else with footage that rarely makes mainstream media. I read notes from the cameraman of my favorite show on TV, the bodyguard of one of my favorite celebs and interact with other fans from around the world. One great actor I follow is such a great tweeter he plays games with his followers and tweets frequent candid photos and video clips. His followers re-tweet every tweet. Some of the best writers of comedy, film and television muse, howl and generally vent to my great amusement and sympathy and I read their travails and sympathize as I sit and write alone. Yet I don’t feel that I am.

This is just the beginning of what is possible with Twitter.  Tools like PeerIndex and Klout can help eliminate some of the chaff that already has started to clog the system. The relentless marketing spam and the hunt for greater and greater numbers of followers. As measurement become more widely adopted, my hope is that some of those practices will fall out of favor. They don’t work, and they are incredibly pointless.
Right now @Klout seems to be the clear leader in the field and at the rate of adoption I am seeing it will be the gold standard. So check in, see your score and find out how influential you are.

In an upcoming post I’ll talk about how Twitter can be useful and effective for a brand without relentlessly marketing itself into oblivion.http://www.klout.com

Super 8

I went and saw Super 8 at a Matinee on Sunday and was unexpectedly charmed by it. Nowadays you expect to be slammed in the face with action so the slow intro to develop the characters confused me for a minute and then I remembered that this is how movies USED to be. You know, like when they made The Goonies, and E.T. You got to know and like the kids BEFORE they ended up in an action sequence. The quality of the film making here is not to be lightly dismissed. I'm talking about nuance, character development, and even the technical aspects of beautiful lighting, sets, shots and casting. And unlike some films it all comes together harmoniously. There are times near the end where I felt like I was in the middle of a good Stephen King book, you know  where all the action happens right before he blows the ending. (That man can NOT end a story. Who can blame him? You fall in love with his characters and don't want them to go.) You care about these kids. They're funny, and sweet and sometimes sad and broken but always loved. Set during the BMX bike era, it evokes a time when you stayed out until it was dark and no one thought anything of it. That mix of nostalgia, the bliss of ignorance and also its costs are woven throughout the film. A highly enjoyable summer film. Reminded me of nothing so much as going to "the picture show" with my family 30 years ago.

Which is a GOOD thing to remember.

Rainn Wilson rocks The Rocker

I saw The Rocker on Friday night. I love Rainn Wilson on The Office, he plays a character named Dwight Shrute who somehow manages to steal the show. (In my opinion.) I wasn’t sure what to expect out of his feature debut as the lead character, though I had appreciated his cameo in Juno, and his roles in My Super Ex-Girlfriend and The Last Mimzy. This was really HIS film. He carried it off admirably. Rainn Wilson has such an unusual charisma about him, both dorky and charming, likable and vaguely off putting at the same time that he is a real magnet for the eye on screen. You are literally waiting to see what he will do next, his face can make the strangest gross out contortions and then moments later look bereft and all little boy lost. In this film he plays a man stuck in a moment that happened 20 years ago when he was booted from a band that went on to great fame. He has burned with rage ever since and when his Emo nephew asks Fish (Rainn) to sit in as the drummer for the Prom gig his band ADD has managed to scare up, all hell breaks loose. While the plot can be a bit predictable, what’s fresh are the supporting actors who play ADD, the nephew’s band. A couple of faces will be familiar from SuperBad. The performances all around add depth and development to the relationships which relieve it of the one note gimmick it could have been in the wrong hands. Poignant and sweet with a clear message. I.E. hope and optimism and the values of friendship versus the values of shallow, self serving, self promoting pursuit of fame and wealth. Overall a nice little pic. A perfect Friday night flick.

I've Fallen for The Fall

I went to see The Fall by Tarsem. The film was amazing, truly beautiful, a veritable work of art.




I got goosebumps watching it, I cried, I gaped open mouthed at some of the visuals, and the music was haunting and evocative. Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92: II. Allegretto (Instrumental). This movie is now on my list of top 10 of all time, which is saying something. It’s about the nature of storytelling and how the listener or reader and the storyteller are collaborators in the creative process. The main character is a little girl named Alexandra. While in a hospital in 1920′s California, she meets Roy, played by Pushing Daisies’s Lee Pace. He tells her an epic story because he wants to trick her into stealing morphine for him so he can commit suicide. He is in a deep depression over the loss of a girlfriend he was madly in love with and a terrible injury he's had on set during his job as a Hollywood stunt man. When he lost his mojo, he lost the girl, who took up with a rich actor.
When he starts the story he introduces each of the characters and as he does, we see them through the eyes of Alexandra’s imagination accompanied by the sound of Roy’s hypnotic voice. He tells of the Indian married to the most beautiful squaw in the land, and Alexandra who has only ever seen an Indian from India imagines him, in his traditional Asian Indian garb with his beautiful wife. Is the story really a product of Roy’s imagination or Alexandra’s? There are times when Alexandra herself interrupts and changes the story, exerting the insistence and power of a child’s boundless hope against Roy’s loss and despair.
It’s also about the redemptive power of stories. Combine that with arguably some of the richest, most powerful, and eye dazzling imagery ever shot on film and it’s easy to see why Tarsem is considered a genius in many circles. I’ve been reduced to watching the trailer over and over on my iPod to hear the music.
Still, it’s worth it.


I also admire Lee Pace, the lead actor who plays the Black Bandit, and the young actress Cantica Untaru who is the female lead is truly magical. Here they are, as they live in her imagination, guided by the words of his storytelling.