What's your klout score? How many people follow you on Twitter? What’s your authority on Peerindex? How are peers rating you on Honestly? What’s your rank in Quora? The answers all equate to a market harbinger that’s both alarming and telling, how much is your digital persona worth in today’s social economy… If Google ranks the quality of web pages using PageRank, new services such... [read more]

What's your klout score? How many people follow you on Twitter? What’s your authority on Peerindex? How are peers rating you on Honestly? What’s your rank in Quora? The answers all equate to a market harbinger that’s both alarming and telling, how much is your digital persona worth in today’s social economy… If Google ranks the quality of web pages using PageRank, new services such as Klout and PeerIndex are developing a human algorithm that could best be described as PeopleRank. Whether you like or not, we live in a social hierarchy where your every move is indexed and calculated into a score that represents your stature in a digital society. Complain all you want, but the truth is that you’re already categorized into one of two groups, the have or have nots. For those who are among the fortunate, they are sought after by brands and other personalities to reward them for their social mastery. They become the new @CharlieSheen. They’re winners! As we see with new media talent agencies such as Ad.ly (the company that got Charlie on Twitter), celebs such as Kim Kardashian, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Paris Hilton, as well as the new era of web celebs and the Internet Famous are cashing in on their fame in new media channels. Twitter is the new vehicle for celebrity endorsements and as a result, Tweets are worth money and brands are lining up. And here’s the crazy part, they’re working and followers love them. But the opportunities you earn in the social web are just as important as the opportunities you will never see. Our avatars carry a number, a value and to the outside world that is our credit score, it is our net worth, it is a representation of our level of influence or lack thereof. But what the hell is influence anyway and why did I not have an opportunity to opt out of any of this? And, if you had the option, would you opt out? At this very moment, influence is harboring feelings of either recognition or resentment. It is what it is. So the question is, what are you going to do about it? Will it inspire you to push back or does it evoke aspiration and focus to change how you engage in social networks to improve your score.

P.S. -- It’s now a tradition, three years in a row, three books debuted at SXSW. Brian will also take a moment to talk about his new book Engage: Revised and Updated.