Bing’s social sidebar is now showing Klout information, but this is happening for more than the typical partnership deal. Microsoft is now an investor in Klout.
From Klout’s blog post today:
To build towards that future, I am proud to announce that Microsoft has made a strategic investment in Klout and that we have signed a multi-year agreement where Bing will become one of Klout’s most significant partners.
No terms beyond that are given.
Klout recently underwent a redesign to help reposition it as a type of social resume service. I’d say Klout has been struggling with the perception that it was all about people wanting to obsess over their Klout “scores” that might reflect little about their actual social influence.
I’d say the redesign was a helpful change, or “pivot” as is so popular a term these days. But the Microsoft investment takes things up into a new level.
Microsoft has a partnership with Twitter. It has the same with Facebook, as well as a small investment in the company. But Klout potentially gives it even more insight into the rapidly growing and changing world of social.
Certainly the investment should help elevate Klout’s positioning as a social service. The data it’s feeding into Bing alone will cause some marketers who may have ignored the service in the past to sit up and take notice.
For more on the Bing integration, see the story on our Search Engine Land sister site: Bing’s Social Sidebar Gains Klout Scores & People Recommendations. For more about Klout, see our related stories below:
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