Influence tools: the devil is in the details

For those of you who haven't heard of Klout, let me give you a brief history: they started back in 2009 with a lot of marketing, a so-so product and non-existent service. They had two ways of handling criticism: either shower the critic in increased Klout score, or ignore him (or her).
With criticism multiplying as Klout was not willing or able to tackle it, Klout decided to take away the cause for it: detailed data on the components making up the Klout score. If you look now, Klout consists of a single score - just a number. Surprisingly, Tweetlevel has travelled the other way - or have they?

The business case for obfuscating Klout details is strong: not anymore will I be able to prove that their figures are statistically impossible:

The above pics show Klout's former marketing manager Megan Berry's @mention count and people mentioning her for a 30-day straight period: every single day the exact same number

The two pics above show Megan's friend count according to Klout, and according to Twittercounter. I'm sure you can see a striking resemblance - between the 3 Klout pics.

That was back in October-November 2010. I notified Klout of my post, several times, but never got a reaction. It wasn't long after that when Klout decided to not show these stats anymore, and just put out a single number for "all-time" RT's, mentions, etc:

That was back in May 2011. You can see the poor attempt at incorporating Facebook into their stats as well, but the most important point is that you can't spot a rotten trend anymore - or can you? I found it odd to notice that no two daily scores ever were the same exactly, but maybe Klout did improve the quality of their code?

Fast forward 4 months, when I investigate the so-called True Reach and find that it's basically your Twitter follower count multiplied by 2.6, give or take 10%:

Within a month, Klout decided to recalibrate True Reach into something even I couldn't recalculate, and eliminate all other subscores except "Amplification" and "Network", which resulted in dramatic increases but mostly drops for pretty much everyone they kept a record on. Soon after, popular opinion forced Klout to enable opt-out for everyone which resulted in a Klout o' Calypse where 2.5 million people opted out of Klout within a month.

Today, Klout is one measly single score without anything below to find out what it's made up of (see the picture at the top of this post). Now, on to Edelman's Tweetlevel: I've always liked their service. They only had one single number with 3 subscores (yes, I know!) and those were steady. They revealed their scoring mechanism to a good detail and appeared to be a roch in the rough sea of Online Influence. Until November 2012, when they revamped the layout and look of it:

That's my Word Cloud right there, plus some stats. The quick stats seem accurate-ish, but the Word Cloud certainly isn't. Thanks to Twitter allowing users to archive their tweets, I can guarantee you that I used the hashtag #Irene 5 times, the last one dating back to August 28 2011. Needless to say, #e20 hasn't been on top of my tweets since roughly then either.
I contacted Johnny Bentwood of Edelman about this and other inconsistencies, and his complete response was:

Thanks – as we are in beta, we are implementing many code fixes so that would explain your 440 errors, please try again later

I'd say he's following Klout tactics there. For completeness' sake, that conversation took place almost a year ago, and this is today's picture...
So I notice that I'm not that happy about Tweetlevel anymore, simply because I witness that part of the data used is over 2 years old - so how can the rest be even close to accurate?

I wonder whether or when Tweetlevel decides to pull detailed sub scores like Klout did, in order to evade simple questions that have no pleasant simple answer. Looking at the buzz around both, however, I'm pleased to see that Tweetlevel is flatlining and not even Microsoft pumping money into Klout raised any eyebrows whatsoever, with Klout attention being back to the same level when they still showed detailed subscores, no matter how ridiculously flawed they were.

The lesson learned? We're still very far away from measuring "online influence" or even Twitter use, and as long as we don't fully master semantics (perfect translation machines would be a proper indication of that), in stead of quality only quantity of interaction can be measured - and as far as we can check, both Klout as well as Tweetlevel stink at even that

54% of blog posts contain pure facts

A post by Dion Hinchcliffe on "social business maturity" made me laugh and cry at the same time. It's one of those misleading semi-analytical semi-research posts that will be joyfully accepted by most people as solid truth.
However, it ain't. If it's anything solid, it's solid suggestimation. Why?

The post smacks the reader in the face with impressive percentages that most, if not all, are in the 50's, 70's or even 80's, seemingly showing that vast majorities of companies are "socially mature".
I'm not even going to dig around in the studies / research cited in every statement (truly chapeau for Dion for not only citing them, but also providing a link by the way - even if I got a 404 on 1 out of 9), I'm just going to show how the attempt to state

Social media is now being used in en masse for marketing, sales, operations, customer care, supply chain, and amongst our workforces

is doomed to fail as the post combines two opposites: on the one hand perfect percentages are presented, on the other hand those are related to vague absolute truths, such as "using social technology for marketing and related functions" and "use social media to engage with customers". Any percentage of nothing is nothing

On the insignificance of (Re)tweets to a post

In a discussion about blindly ReTweeting yesterday, I remembered that I once did a short analysis on auto-tweets.
An auto-tweet is a schedule you set up against an RSS-feed or any other trigger, which tweets the URL with a title, some of the post itself, a fixed word or hashtag, etc. Some "thought-leaders" use it to ditch all attribution and pretend the tweet originated from themselves. Usually, their Twitter bio then also says "I tweet interesting links" - well, now you know how they do it and how original and carefully curated these are...

I wondered about the current state of affairs - and did a deep analysis this time, the results of which are depicted above

Why TwentyFeet is Total Twash

Yet another Twitter analytic tool has made it into the spotlights: Twentyfeet
Like most if not all other tools that try to measure Twitter stats (Klout, Tweetlevel), it horribly fails. Apparently it's too much work or money to actually measure all tweets, and do they take a sample and extrapolate - or rather, sugguestimate - the rest

That, or they really just can't count

Read before you share - otherwise it's gossip

A rubbish post by business insider titled "This Survey Is Devastating For Microsoft: 42% Of Windows Users Plan To Switch To Apple" and a very dubious post by the New York Times titled "The Tablet Market Grows Cluttered" drew my attention today - the latter claimed that

About 98 percent of Web traffic from tablets comes from iPads, according to Onswipe, a digital publishing company

The answer to the first riddle lies in the post itself, the other answer is just a few clicks away. The verdict: bogus anal-ysis. Which doesn't matter to the authors, because the shares came in by the hundreds of course. Amazing facts!

Big Brother? Sits right on your mobile

[The image above has nothing to do with this post, but it seemed to be fitting, given the latest developments. This post is all about trust]

In this age of free(mium), it's common knowledge that you pay with your privacy. Facebook is the best (or should I say worst) example of the dance around your data, yet there are many more tools that you use, which have access to everything that you carry with you: all the data on your phone. Not only can they read that, they can also change it - and even "impersonate" you

Some applications do need this very deep trust level, e.g. virus scanners and applications such as Androidlost. Others absolutely do not do so, like Skype, Google Plus, LinkedIn and Facebook. Interested to see what they can do to the contents of your phone? You'll be in for a surprise, or should I say, shock

Why I only watch blind auditions of #TVOH

It was an intention I had after the first season of The voice Of Holland had ended. After the second season, it was a firm agreement I made with myself. And yet, as it's aired on Friday night, it's become a tradition for me and my women to watch TVOH with a proper fire in the fireplace, drinks, potato chips, and lively discussions

No more. I tell you, no more

Innovation and inclusion - a matter of space and time

[Image by Salim Virji]

I am not sure anymore on relationship between innovation and inclusion . Need to think through it during the long flight to India tomorrow
— Vijay Vijayasankar (@vijayasankarv) October 26, 2012

Vijay Vijasankar and Ethan Jewett dragged me into a conversation on innovation and inclusion. Well of course they didn't, I butted in as usual

My answer was:

@vijayasankarv @esjewett that can't be true. They mean the extent of inclusion in space and time - I sure do hope
— Martijn Linssen (@MartijnLinssen) October 26, 2012

I'm sorry, you're just not incompetent enough to get it

Olivier Blanchard made me do it.

@martijnlinssen :D As far as I can tell, incompetence isn't a driver of failure. It's a driver of advancement.
— Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder) October 16, 2012

And it is. Definition of advancement? Coming up soon. But this is the driver for most, if not all, of your life: work, life, religion, politics, social media (sic) and last but certainly not least successful Enterprise products.
Come again? Yes

What drives IT failure? Ignorance and Greed

It was an interesting question Charles Storm posed the other day: was I saying that solutions are primarily driven by ignorance and greed? I wasn't, but he made me think:

• Every solution is driven by need, or want, and some lack of knowledge.
• Every failure is caused by ignorance and greed

Let's see whether I can find good arguments for that, and where the twain meet

Institutionalisation or mob rule - how minorities control the majority

[Image by Mick Stevens, courtesy of the Newyorker]

The topic has been on my agenda for very, very long now. I've touched upon it in my Social Business (R)evolution book, and most other "social posts" underlying that.
I've touched upon it in my "enterprise posts", and in my "religion posts". I haven't written any (or maybe I have some?) "political posts", but I have most certainly done so in my "spiritual posts".
Institutionalisation - it ruins everything. It obliterates common sense, magically forces people to hand over any and all kind of responsibility, and transforms reluctance into acquiesence

Mussels in vinegar

A recipe for a Social Media experience

A column not for the fainthearted

Recently I commented on a picture, posted on Facebook. The picture showed somebody’s hand, holding a mussel, over dinner. Its caption said: "Seek the ten differences". For those with a dirty mind like mine, this needs no further explanation.

I commented on this photo. Of course I did, that’s me! One of the differences, I stated, was that funny looking hard shell, which was new to me. A short and hilarious conversation followed in the comments on this post. It needs no elaboration that these comments were mostly equivocal of sort, but at the same time, not a single word or expression was of an explicit "adult" nature.

Much to my surprise, within TEN minutes after the initial post, it was completely removed from Facebook. Facebook takes its censorship of citizens pretty seriously, I gather!

GoDaddy... Go... Gone

Tonight the Godaddy servers have been hit by a simple DDOS - a distributed denial of service involving a few dozen clients or servers that fire off hundreds or even thousands of requests a second at their servers. It's a simple attack, and very effective. It's like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop, standing in the middle of the classroom and getting all those toddler questions fired off at him. The inevitable result: he breaks down

Google you are so sad, you drive me mad

Google has tried a new trick to lure in people to their destined-to-die Social Network, aka Google+

Update August 3 7:32 GMT+2:
This works on Internet Explorer 8. I haven't been able to reproduce this on other browsers and versions

Why the harsh words? Because I'm appalled by the method they choose. If you're not getting enough attention for your product or service, you should try to make it more attractive (financially, operationally, which ever way) - not invent cunning ways to whip people towards or into it

What has Google tried now? They limit your Google Search results to 20, unless you sign up for Google+.
Let me repeat that: Google limits your Google Search results (to 20), unless you sign up for Google+

Twitter is NOT where the party is at

You couldn't possible have missed the messy story around NBC and Twitter, resulting in suspension of Guy Adams' Twitter account. Guy's latest reaction on that is here, and contains the concise version.

Update July 31st 21:15 GMT+2: Guy Adam's account has been unsuspended:

Oh. My Twitter account appears to have been un-suspended. Did I miss much while I was away?
— Guy Adams (@guyadams) July 31, 2012

I do have to say that "which is widely listed online" is an exaggeration for sure, as it's only to be found on one site

I remember that it was also in a comment to a 2008 post on that same site, but can't possibly find that anymore now the web has been littered with Gary Zenkel's email address. In an action that started 10 hours ago, people have been tweeting and blogging the email address and since then it's been mentioned over a thousand times on Twitter, and if you Google for it you'll currently get close to ten thousand results

The awkward Art of Selfpromotion

Yesterday I saw a post on Cloudave, written by Michael Krigsman. It was about a list of people worth following, according to Michael, if you are interested in Enterprise Software.
I scanned the list to see who was on there that I'm not already following, and was surprised to find Michael Krigsman himself on it.
As he himself titled the post "Trusted enterprise software experts: The #EnSW Twitter list" I couldn't refrain from tweeting my feelings about that:

RT @CloudAve: Trusted enterprise software experts: The #EnSW Twitter list http://goo.gl/fb/VENrl < sad how @mkrigsman put his own name on it

However, I was too quick. @Cloudave himself pointed me to the fact that this was not Michael's list, but Dennis Moore's one - and that was correct.
So I correct my tweet by RT-ing it with a comment, and apologise:

Correction, it's @dbmoore's list. Sorry > The #EnSW Twitter list http://goo.gl/fb/VENrl < sad how @mkrigsman put his own name on it

The post is a summation of someone else's "list" without reference to source, and it's got the author of the post on it, as well as the creator of the "list": Dennis Moore.

So I thank Cloudave, and tweet with some sarcasm that I'm pleased to see that Dennis thinks of himself a s a smart news commentator

@CloudAve thanks, read too quickly. Odd blog post then, though. However, pleased that @dbmoore thinks of himself as a smart news commentator

A while after, while myself sound asleep, Dennis responds with a tweet and an email

Google Drive breaks Google Docs?

Starting yesterday, I've been receiving requests from people to share some of the content I have on Google Docs. Yesterday I also shared a link with a friend of mine, and he couldn't access it. That puzzled me

I checked the last link myself, signed out, and tried again - I got a log-on. What? My publicly shared link wasn't publicly shared anymore?
I checked a few other links that I've been publicly sharing for years without problems - I couldn't access them, period

Need a mindset for adaptation? Team up

My latest post told my story of a week of hiking.
In essence, it was a classical story of engaging a new venture, preparing for it as best as you can, being confronted with (utter) failure and adapt to the changed circumstances by listening to yourself, your peers, experts in the field - and then growing into the situation you got yourself into by adopting new and better tools and ways of behaving.
The outcome? Relatively ridiculously great success from my point of view, good effort and result from the point of view of my friends.
What lies ahead? More growth by change, and determination to continue into the direction I went. I'll lose 15 kilograms to start with (15% of current bodyweight) and take up walking - I love it, and by Jove I need the exercise

Is that how it always goes? That depends. Olivier Blanchard made the great point I'll work out here:

@MartijnLinssen @britopian you had the mindset first. That's what I'm saying. Without the mindset, the tools are wasted.
— Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder) June 20, 2012

Will adopting social tools leverage adaptation?

After a week of hiking in Ireland (hence the picture), it's hard to pick up blogging again. Thankfully, Michael Brito got me going and an interesting conversation, with an old theme, unfolded:

RT @martijnlinssen: @Britopian I think the need to adapt rather than adopt is what stalls #socbiz. Takes a few times longer than usual
— Michael Brito (@Britopian) June 19, 2012

Michael, Olivier and I took it a bit further and ended up with indeed the ancient argument:

@adamsinger @thebrandbuilder @MartijnLinssen that brings up the ancient argument .. can you teach certain characteristics like leadership
— Michael Brito (@Britopian) June 19, 2012

My answer? Yes and no - let me explain please

Simple Service Enterprise - part 2

Yesterday's post was about Simple Service Enterprise, and showed the basics: to keep up with the growing diversity inside and outside your enterprise for getting the same functionality on different devices and platforms, you need an Integration layer (the red in the middle). Can't argue with that, point-to-point integration is a neat quick and dirty solution for very small IT landscapes and doesn't scale cost effectively

SOA attempted to do so via ESB, but there a few reasons why that failed: