Social influence ranking network Klout has run out of steam and will close its doors on May 25th.

The company was acquired by customer service outfit Lithium Technologies for $200m in 2014 and formed the basis for additional product launches such as Reach.

However, while the back-end tech has proved useful, Lithium says that the Klout name itself has now lost its value.

You are not a number

“Lithium is committed to providing you with the technology and services that will enable you to differentiate your customer experience," said CEO Pete Hess.

"Our recent launch of Lithium Messaging is evidence of our focus on this mission.

“The Klout acquisition provided Lithium with valuable artificial intelligence (AI) and machinelearning capabilities but Klout as a standalone service is not aligned with our long-term strategy.

Hess added: “Our goal with these AI and machine learning investments is to improve our customer care capabilities across the board, whether that’s self-service, peer-to-peer, or direct-to-brand.

"In the near-term, for example, we will be looking to improve agent productivity within SMM and improve the overall user experience in Community through the application of AI, while we are also planning the launch of a new social impact scoring methodology based on Twitter.”

For a period people would use their Klout score as a metric for demonstrating their influencer capacity. Scores were awarded between one and 100 and would use data relating to activity on services such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and Foursquare.

The honeymoon period was bright but brief and it was not long before the accuracy of Klout’s metrics became widely distrusted.

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