Unfortunately, many of the social networks we first loved for their quirky simplicity have reached their awkward “Internet adolescence”. They’ve grown up too fast and are all gangly and uncoordinated. They’re starting to suffer from poor skin – obvious, unsightly blemishes popping up all over, masking the still-attractive core. Plus they’re raging with over-active/imbalanced hormones leading to all kinds of foolish mistakes and embarrassing moments.

I’m hoping we all get past this soon, but I don’t have high hopes.

At no point have I made any claims or statements about CheaterVille, other than to mention in passing that the CheaterVille Twitter account is one of several being followed by a group of user accounts looked at in my research.

Also, if you’re intending to go after someone for alleged defamation, I’m pretty sure the word you’ll be looking for is “libel”, not “slander”. Slander refers to defamatory speech. If you believe someone has defamed you in writing, that would be libel.

Finally, you need to add a possessive apostrophe to the word “Facebooks” in your last sentence. Let me know when you hear back from their legal department, by the way. I’d be interested to hear what they have to say.

Not sure where you get your information from but we advertise directly with Facebook. We have forwarded your “blog” directly to Facebook, they are currently investigating your claims. You have posted an outright lie saying that CheaterVille is paying for it’s Facebook likes. We advertise through Facebook in an effort to drive more traffic to our site. A cease and desist letter will be arriving in your mail shortly from CheaterVille. You have 72 hours to remove the false claim made against CheaterVille or we will 100% be suing you for slander. A copy of our comment and your false comments have been sent to Facebooks legal department as well.

Unfortuntately until this week Facebook’s edgerank favored stories from pages with 1,000+ fans. They *say* they have fixed this… http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-pages-engagement-2011-10.

I generally block all twitter accounts that follow me with suspicious tweets, low engagement and spammy tweets. Just will not participate in upping their numbers.

You’re right to be angered at the mis-use. I am too.

These modern-day snake oil peddlers are selling what people want to buy: that there’s some elixir that will bring them a fountain of gold. Ooh, so and so has a Klout score of whatever, so if I market to them successfully, they will somehow influence the lemmings who worship at their altars and unquestioningly (is that a word?) drink my Koolaid. That may work, and it may not.

Fact is, we are all influencers in our own social networks. I have personally been responsible for the equipment choices of my scuba diving students and customers. I haven’t the foggiest what my Klout score is because it’s irrelevant.

Wow, that’s quite the rant, although it does remind me of the conversations we used to have at the office! By the way, now that you mentioned kittens, you’re probably going to have a high Klout score for kittens this weekend.

So I’m now looking at this as a social experiment in purity. My Klout score this morning was 59 – down from the dizzy heights of 79 a few months ago.

I believe the real secret to creating a strong online presence is to create good content that real people choose to distribute freely through their networks. It takes work, in other words. If my theory holds, and my content is good enough, then let’s check back in a couple of days and see where my Klout score is at