As You Like It: Text Me a River

I’m probably one of the few people who enjoyed high school even with all the teen angst floating around. But one thing I do not miss is the popularity contest that always poisoned the air — everyone jockeying around for a slot on the I’m-so-cool list. As I recall, being part of the in-crowd was even important in grade school. In fifth grade we had slam books to keep everyone in their place. Someone would pass around a notebook with a classmate’s name on each page so that everyone could write down what they thought of that person. I don’t know why we didn’t just shoot each other and be done with it. It was horrible.

So imagine my concern upon reading that there is now a digital way to keep track of who’s in and who’s so definitely out — a Klout score. As Beth Teitell explained in a February 18 article in the Boston Globe (“Ascent of the social-media climbers”):

Klout.com is one of a number of new status measuring tools aimed at making social networking more like high school than it already is. Sites such as Klout take public information from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to determine a person’s influence on social media.

The article introduces us to Valentina, a Boston University junior who, immediately after she accepts a date offer, “goes online to see how many Twitter followers her suitor has.” According to Teitell, she checks her own follower count three times a day, and when she meets someone who admits to following more people than follow him, she thinks, “That means you’re a loser.” So when her Klout score hit an impressive 59 out of 100 recently, she was ecstatic. “I felt worthy,” she is quoted as saying.

For those of you who didn’t quite follow that, it means that if high numbers of random people who you’ve never met aren’t following your prospective honey bun, he’s a loser — dump him. And, conversely, if your own random numbers that were dreamed up by some ad company to make pots of money are through the roof, then congratulations, you’ve made it. You are worthy.

Why do I feel that while I was sleeping, aliens abducted me and dropped me into some black hole of techno-idiocy? But this is the part that I really love:

The companies use secret algorithms that go beyond simple numbers of followers — which can be bought in bulk — or friends or fans, and count retweets, the number of links clicked, and even how influential one’s followers are, among other indicators.

Kind of like being on double-secret probation a la Animal House, no? Some company, whose mathematicians are former high school algebra geeks out for revenge, comes up with a random equation to prove that God is dead, the moon is made of Swiss cheese, and your digital-social popularity. Sure, you discovered a cure for cancer, climbed Mount Everest, and fought your way through the Amazon rain forest, but if your Twitter count is low, you’re just not worthy. Alice in Wonderland couldn’t have come up with a better scenario.

If this were only a game that college students play I wouldn’t care. We did weird stuff too, like protesting the war in Vietnam and demanding equal rights for women. But now sites like Klout are influencing those of us who live in the real world as well.

According to Teitell, Mark Schaefer, author of the “Tao of Twitter: Changing Your Life and Business 140 Characters at a Time,” said the “new score-keeping tools create a ‘disturbing’ social media caste system that he dislikes.”

“But, he adds, ‘from a marketer’s standpoint, they’re a dream.’”

And Teitell informs us that our Klout scores have “already jumped from the online world into the real one.” She cites Advertising Age, which wrote in September, “Need a Reservation? That Could Depend on How Big You are on Twitter.”

So thanks to marketers who have discovered their very own holy grail, you may not get a table at your favorite restaurant or a hotel room at your vacation destination or a good seat at a concert if you don’t know how to do the social media dance. I’m as good as dead.

Especially if I go to a restaurant that uses text messaging as their new communication tool. Kathleen Pierce of the Boston Globe writes:

You probably text your friends and co-workers, so why not do the same with a waiter or waitress when you’re dining out? That’s the concept behind several Boston area companies that now offer ordering and seating systems based on text messaging…At Charlie’s Kitchen in Cambridge, tapping “another round of drinks’’ or “extra sauce with that’’ into a BlackBerry or iPhone is now the norm on busy nights.

The restaurant Fire & Ice uses texting to call their customers to their table, thereby enabling their marketers to get their customers’ phone numbers. They can get access to that personal data only if customers opt into the system.

Pierce goes on to quote Bob Nilsson, president of Text My Food LLC, a Cambridge start-up: “If your server just left, you don’t have to wave or look around, just dash off a quick message.” You don’t even have to speak to him or acknowledge that he’s human.

I remember our lovely experience at the restaurant Spiga, where our waiter, Dan, made us feel as if he had cooked our meal himself and then served it to us in his dining room. I really think that texting him to bring us olive oil “chop-chop” would have somehow spoiled the atmosphere.

So please world, move on without me and leave me to enjoy my meal in digital-social purgatory. I’m much happier here — even if it makes me unworthy.

Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=3389

Posted by Joan Florek Schottenfeld on Mar 3 2011. Filed under As You Like It, Featured Content, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.