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Social media is evolving every day. In just the past four years, we have seen Facebook grow from 100 million to over 900 million users. We’ve seen Twitter usage increase from 300,000 tweets per day to over 400 million tweets per day. LinkedIn has grown from 20 million to over 175 million users. The movement that grew out of college dorm rooms now has the power and scale to launch new markets and topple governments. And the rate of change is unprecedented in the history of technology and media. Since Klout was founded in 2008, we’ve seen the emergence and rapid growth of new networks, with many introducing powerful shifts in behavior, influence, and the way that ideas are shared.

Measuring all of this is a monumental challenge. Our team of engineers, scientists and hardcore social media users are obsessed with providing every person with the most accurate and transparent view of their influence and the power of their ideas. To accomplish this, we are constantly adapting and evolving our measurement to stay ahead of the social media growth curve.

Today, we’re introducing some of the most significant product updates in Klout’s history. With these updates, we’ve concentrated on helping everyone to gain a clearer, more accurate understanding of how they influence other people through the ideas they share.

Here’s what we’re announcing today:

More Data, More Often
We have increased the number of social media signals we analyze from less than 100 to more than 400. We have also increased the number of data points we analyze on a daily basis from 1 billion to 12 billion. All of this additional data helps us deliver a more accurate Score for everyone on Klout.

Real-World Influence
Our long-term goal is to understand and analyze all the world’s influence, both online and offline. Today, we are entering the early stages of incorporating real-world influence into the Klout Score by integrating Wikipedia. We see a Wikipedia entry as a significant indicator of one’s ability to drive action in the real world. We’ve tested this method over the past several months and the updated Scores of recognized world leaders like Barack Obama and Warren Buffett more accurately reflect their real-world influence. Go here to see examples of how Scores are being calibrated by these new inputs.

Distribution Shift
The social Web is evolving, but one thing that’s not changing is the continued growth we’re tracking. Interaction and participation levels in the networks we measure are growing exponentially. We’ve adjusted the distribution of Klout Scores to better reflect the growth in engagement across the Web.

Moments
Moments is a significant addition to the Klout user experience. This feature displays the content and ideas that have been most influential across all of your networks, all in one place. Moments will also help you see interaction patterns emerge that can help you shape your influence and improve the quality of your ideas. We’ll make moments available to everyone over the next few weeks. You can also check out a preview here.

Shiny New Site Design
We’ve redesigned Klout.com to focus on the content that shapes your influence through each interaction. Our goal is to deliver a cleaner, more authentic representation of the insights and understanding you’ll now be able to get when you come to Klout. Like moments, we’ll initially make the new website design available to a small percentage of users and roll it out to everyone over the next few weeks.

This update marks the next phase of Klout’s evolution into the dynamic, engaging platform of understanding and insight that I envisioned. Our ongoing vision is to help everyone discover and be recognized for their influence. Your ideas are more powerful than you can imagine, and with these updates to Klout, we are taking a step towards helping you understand that influence and better create ideas that shape the world around you.

We know how important the Klout Score is to you. I look forward to hearing your feedback and hope you’ll find these updates to be as useful and awesome as we do.