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@silverwizard What a terrible idea. From the page you linked to:
In 2007, Joe Fernandez underwent a surgery that required him to wire his mouth shut. Because he could not speak for three months, he turned to Facebook and Twitter for social interaction. During this period, he became obsessed with the idea that "word of mouth was measurable." Pulling data from Twitter’s API, he created a prototype that would assign users a score out of 100 to measure their influence. Midway into 2008, he showed the prototype to some friends, who told him it was "the dumbest thing ever."

Yep, that's about it.
This entry was edited (11 months ago)
@Hypolite Petovan The funny part is that all of his friends were correct about it. But - yeah - it seems really strange to go from "I can't speak" to "we should rate everyone on a scale and give stuff to the people who use social media"
@silverwizard Have you never seen a middle aged white guy fail upwards? It is, unfortunately, fairly common in tech.

Shiri Bailem reshared this.

@silverwizard Come on, don't be so hard with yourself, you aren't failing.
@Hypolite Petovan Yeah - but I am wildly aware of the disconnect between action and money in tech
"Fernandez underwent jaw surgery at the age of 30, which contributed to his idea for Klout due to his inability to speak."

.... :flan_think:​ uhh how?
@pamela :flan_butterfly: Yeah - it's baffling isn't it.

Being silenced leading to ... Celebrity culture?
@silverwizard @pamela :flan_butterfly:

Nah, I think that tracks...

"I'm Being Cancelled!" - Some douchebag in a sold out amphitheater
We don't talk about the Old Days of Shitty Social Media much, do we?
@Allan Haverholm We should always remember the Phaedrus Lesson

The past is always a perfect time - and the good part of it is often a quirk of memory, yeah