What the heck is Klout?

Let me tell you what I think about Klout...

In case you don't know, Klout is a website service that calculates your online influence. You give it your Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, and other random social media information, then it spits out a number between 0 and 100, ranking how influential you are on the internet.

Firstly, why have we become so obsessed with how we influence others??? Why does it matter? Didn't our elementary school teachers always tell us to just be ourselves? In middle school, didn't we learn not to care what others think about us? And then high school only reinforced that no one actually does any of that... BUT WE GET TO COLLEGE and realize that, hey, it actually doesn't matter as long as you're happy, right? RIGHT?!

Apparently not, or there wouldn't be hundreds of thousands of Klout users.

Whatever. People wanna know how they influence people. Okay, fine, I can deal with that. But then you have to look at how Klout actually scores you.

The more you check your Klout score, your score goes down. And the more you use Klout, the harder it is to improve your score. Why? Because you suddenly care what your score is, so you are less influential.
What the hell?
Continuing on, there are these bizarre things called "Klout points" that you can earn by doing stupid shit like visiting certain stores or sharing certain links. I'm sorry, but this is literally the oldest trick in the book. Klout is just dangling the carrot in front of people. They keep reaching and reaching for these Klout points by basically advertising random businesses for free; then they get points; then check their score... BUT OH WAIT, because they checked their score, it goes down. So why did you go after those points in the first place? Oh right, free advertising?

Then there's the name, the actual name of this thing.
Klout.
Like "tout," meaning brag? Or "lout," which means idiot? But, ohp, we added a "K" in there so it's super cool, right guys?! Sooooo 21st century.
Personally, it just reminds me of the word "clot" as in a blood clot, just stopping the flow of everything. As in, stopping the flow of the internet. As in, rubbernecking, since everyone is just looking at what a disaster their score is.

I have to admit, I've checked my Klout score. But not through Klout! There is a super-sneaky way to do it, as I discovered this summer. What is it, you ask? Oh that would be telling... and besides, I'd have to dock you points for that :P

xxo, S

Some blogs. (thoughts)

Many of my friends are writing blogs during their studies abroad, which I agree is a great way to document the experience. I also champion it as a way to gain experience in the blogging world (or blogosphere if you will), which is a skill that can carry you far in both the cut-throat corporate world and on the autonomous self-employed part of the spectrum.

I myself considered creating a new blog just for study abroad, until I realized that thecolourscape was really lacking and needed some, well, colour. (Plus, now you all don't have to learn some new URL, I'm just right here where I've always been!) While I'm overjoyed to be writing for you all, I've noticed some discrepancies between how other people blog and how I blog and I was thinking about this and..... ok well I'm just going to talk about them now.

First comes choosing a blogging platform (aka: website) and nowadays there are many to choose from. Tumblr, WordPress, and Blogger are the big three, but I've also seen people do Xanga, Weebly, and even Twitter. The platform you choose says a lot about what type of blog you're about to have. Tumblr will probably be mostly pictures; Blogger looks generic; WordPress will be more professional in appearance; and Twitter will be short and concise.
However, not everyone seems to understand that a Tumblr with long text posts doesn't look good; or that endless tweets don't really tell your story. Discrepancy One: Knowing which blogging website to use.

Then comes the actual composition of your blog. Appearances aside (I'm very picky about that, but a blog is as much a reflection of the person writing it as their clothes are), the way that a blog post is structured can obviously vary. A lot.
Huge blocks of text are not easy to read, no matter how funny or descriptive your tale is. I know I'm not the best follower of this rule, but I'm telling you, it's easier to read and everyone will love you for it. Promise. Discrepancy Two: Knowing when to hit the "enter" button.

Along the same lines are what you actually write about. Here is where I'll stop criticizing (I'm sorry! It's a bad habit, I KNOW!) and get more reflective.
You spot the people who like to write immediately. They've got a good font set up, and their first line is generally more creative than "One time, I went to the beach." Coming off of this are those who write directly about their day-to-day life in another country, versus those who who write somewhat meditatively about their experience, or even about some small observation. I like both of these kinds of blogs (I like to think I fall somewhere in the middle, here), but I want to focus on the latter for a sec.

I like these people who use their lovely language skills to tell you about language struggles, lunch, dreams, boat rides, or hostel issues. They can be funny! Or pensive! Or simply well-narrated! But they've picked one small thing and, honestly, I'm a little jealous they can speak so profoundly about just one thing. Lord knows I can just ramble on and on about many nothings! (aka: right now.)
Anyway, Discrepancy Three: Knowing what to actually write about.

This is all I can come up with right now. I think when I sat down to write this I had more to say but I got sidetracked by looking at my friends' blogs so I could use them as examples... Yes, if you think I referred to you, I probably did.

Sorry if you read this and got bored.
xxo, S