2008 – 2018retired
AirPort Time Capsule
“It backed up everything, including, eventually, itself.”
“It measured your influence; we measure our grief. It was considerable.”
Klout launched in 2008 as a website and mobile app that rated users' online social influence with a single number between 1 and 100. It pulled data from nearly everywhere you lived online — Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, Wikipedia, YouTube, and Bing — and aggregated it into your personal Klout Score. People loved it because it turned the vague vanity of being online into something concre
Lithium Technologies acquired Klout in March 2014 and closed the service on May 25, 2018 — the very day the European GDPR came into force. All Twitter users had a score whether they wanted one or not, so when the numbers stopped, everyone's influence became unmeasurable at once. What it left behind was a decade of proof that we'd happily let our friendships be scored, so long as the score was good.
Spotted something wrong? Every fact on this page traces to a dated source. Fixes make the graveyard better for everyone.
“It backed up everything, including, eventually, itself.”
“It gave Android its paper feel, and Android never looked back.”
“Fifteen thousand subtitled stories, one final subtitle: The End.”