Klout is a San Francisco based company that provides social media analytics to measure a user's influence across their social network.

Klout is the Standard for Influence. Join Klout to discover your influence and compare with others you may know.

Remember that time that astrologers decided that they had gotten all the zodiac signs off by one, and everyone was so bewildered because all of a sudden you were NO LONGER AN ARIES BUT A PISCES and it seemed like everything you had believed for so long was untrue.

Well the social media equivalent happened today for startup Klout and its “scores,” which purportedly give you and others an idea of your social media influence on various topics.

Amid much controversy, the startup's ranking of social activity makes it a major player in the race to measure online influence. While it may be true that those affected by Klout scores are primarily social-media consultants, there’s no question that the goal of measuring influence online is one that some major players also have their sights on. Ryan Sarver, the head of platform for Twitter, spent part of Wednesday night arguing with a number of people about the value of what Klout is doing and said that “regardless of how you feel about Klout, it has become an indispensable part of the ecosystem” and that “online reputation is going to be enormous.”

Remember that the Klout Score is closely connected to clicks, retweets and comments. When thinking about what the definition of influence is, it is basically your ability to drive people to take some sort of action. This can be in the form of a reply, comment, click or retweet. Testing is being done on a regular basis to make sure that the average click rate on shared links is tied into a person’s Klout Score. In other words, the Klout Score represents the measure of success that a person achieves when it comes to engaging his or her audience and how much of an impact his or her messages have on other people.