Lithium to buy Klout after buying Scout. Should consumers Pout?

Lithium reportedly buys Klout for a whopping $100 million. Wow. Why? Klout has been working hard to measure the unmeasurable since their founding, our collective social influence.  Klout recently rolled out new engagement and discovery tools that rhyme with Lithium’s earlier acquisition of Scout Labs so there is an interesting question of redundancy.  Scout Labs founders eventually left and now are turning heads with a powerful marketing metrics company, Beckon. Is this an aquhire for Lithium? In part yes, Klout has some amazing design talent that could round out Lithium’s offerings.

In reality, I think Lithium is buying the powerful dataset that Klout has been building over the years, connecting the dots between users different social channels.  Klout knows who I am in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and any other social media platform I care to share with them.  It’s the largest collection of fused consumer identity information outside of the government.  Klout knows who we are, what we say, and to whom across all public channels.   Consumers willingly gave over this information to know what our score was, like those compatibility tests we all took in middle school.  Question is, what will Lithium do with this treasure trove?  Do they have the vision and resources to leverage these powers for the good of consumers and their corporate clients?  Only time will tell.