Harvard or Klout?

Recently I came across a video from the Wall Street Journal showing the merits of Klout and discussing some of the perspectives. This leads me to drive the vision further and to ask simple: how will our kids feed their families tomorrow? If the Harvard boys continue to build programs but the asset value shifts away from the program to the individuals populating it, then we may have to rethink economic models and education.

The Klout Report

Below the video which shows what Klout, Social Networking and Social Network Marketing can lead to.

Social Networks Status Quo

Up to now, smart kids built programs and got people to join. These people were building the actual asset value of the program – for free. Many such programs have been sold for billions or went public rewarding the program owners with loads of cash.

Those who actually have built the content, traffic and prestige of the program were not really involved in the benefits of such transactions (think of MySpace, Skype, and others, where subscribers were “sold” multiple times).

Social Profiles, Indexing and Klout

While in the past, programs, like newspapers were analyzed for their target public (market) in order to determine the advertizing value, social profiles are linked to individuals, brands or eventually groups of people. High social indexes in clearly defined market (tags, keywords) will shift the financial power away from programs to where it actually should be: the social profiles, representing high impact, conversion and sales.

My advice to Facebook would be: go public before the market’s attention shifts.

Education and Family Business

As parents, we only want the best for our children and if in the past it has been generally admitted that a traditional university education is the most promising base for an economically successful life, one may start doubting that this will still be true in the near future. If tomorrow merchants sponsor social profiles and their owners, then it may be tempting to drag your kid as early as possible in front of a computer and let him collect Likes. The issue is: instead of focusing on traditional schooling, one could let the child build its social index, which, if well managed may rake in millions comparable to show or sports stars.

You could also imagine a whole family working on one and the same social profile, to expand influence. The Social Profile becomes an immaterial material asset in as much as an advertising value is attached to it.

Changing Shopping Habits and Legal Frameworks

Tomorrow, there is no more need for traditional supermarkets, expensive shops in downtown areas and well dressed staff. Shopping will be recommendation based and take place online. Costly networks of distributors will be to expensive, companies will sell directly and select a few high social profiles to recommend their goods and services.

People will look for a benefit and find the appropriate recommendations on Google and in Social Networks. Influential profiles will make money like never before. Such profiles don’t need to be wrapped up in companies limited by shares. The can exist without any particular legal framework, however you could imagine that such profiles may want to build goodwill and associate themselves with NGOs or even become a Foundation whereas then the family members would be the people running the foundation.

And what if the Consumption Driven Society evolves

This would probably be the best that can happen, however then the Social network Bubble and the material interest therein would pass. Now that would be a real revolution for the 21st century!