KMIKEYM

Q: Will you workshop the idea of a “Klout Score” futures market and have a report on my desk by 5pm?

Futures are a contract where a buyer enters an agreement with a seller to purchase an asset at future date at a predetermined price.

Attempting to attach a financial value to a Klout score would prove difficult. But the value of an influential tweet/post could be determined with a bidding model.

In the case of Klout.com the seller’s “value” would be the score. But the asset that is being purchased would be the social influence of the seller. So in this case it would make sense to use the Klout score to determine pricing, but to purchase an ad in the future after their Klout score increases.

The benefits of this would be that the seller is able to get more money now on the promise they will grow their social influence as measured by Klout. The buyer would be able to add risk and reduce the cost of purchasing higher social influence in the future. As the social rankings of the seller increased the Klout Scores Future Market would rise in value, and the initial purchaser could sell that contract to another person. By the time the contract due date arrives the seller simply accepts the social media message and delivers per the terms of the contract (likely a tweet or Facebook post).

Klout itself could broker the deals and take a small fee. Having integrated the social media apps API into their service they could also issue the tweet/message without involving the seller directly. Should the seller have second thoughts they could always purchase their own contract. Of course a seller could issue multiple contracts and the terms could vary greatly.