I've been obsessing a bit about Empire Avenue. Is it a game, like Farmville? Yes. Is it a way to engage in conversation in real-time like Twitter? Yes. Can you make connections for business like LinkedIn? Yes. Is is a way to ascertain someone's Social Media influence, like Klout? Yes. So, yeah, it's pretty intriguing. I was going to write a big post about the different elements that make it so compelling, but then I read this post from Tal Baron on Five Reasons Why Empire Avenue Could Be The Next Big Thing In Social Media and he did a great job. So instead, I'm going to focus today on why I think it provides a particularly serious issue for sites like Klout and PeerIndex.
Empire Avenue factors your social media presence like Klout and PeerIndex. I'm sure they use different algorithms, but at the end of the day all three are going to provide you with some metric and you're not going to get an 80 from one source, and 79 from another and a 6 from the third. But Empire Avenue has a couple of elements the others don't.
First, I can have a say in my score, or someone else's via Empire Avene in a way I can't with the other sites. Buy being able to buy stock I can help a person's "influencer rating" go up. In fact, there are lots of things you can do on Empire Avenue to help lift your score. On Klout or PI, you check your score but it is what it is. I'm not saying that makes for a better, more authentic score, just that with that ability, people are going to want to spend time on improving their Empire Avenue score - because they can.
And that's the second killer part to Empire Avenue. It's got a compelling game element that keeps you coming back (like Farmville). You could spend 3 or 4 minutes on PeerIndex. You could spend 3 or 4 hours on Empire Avenue. I think Klout and PeerIndex are going to have to spend a lot of time explaining how their data is more pure, and the truly professional Social Media practitioners will understand the difference. But many people will be happy to look at stock prices and accept that a high stock price equals social media influence.
I think Klout especially, and PeerIndex to a smaller degree will have to look at adding elements to their sites now. Adding social rewards elements perhaps to keep people engaged. It's a fascinating area and one worth watching.
What do you think? Can Empire Avenue compete with Klout and PeerIndex as a measurement of social media influence? Should it? Will Empire Avenue just be seen as a game, or will brands view players with high stock prices as people worth engaging with and offering Perks to? Let me know what you think.