When a friend of mine turned 40 her sister told her that she had better take care of herself because she was competing with 20-year-olds. My thought: Why would you want to date a man who wants to date a twenty-something?

I feel the same way about Klout.

There’s a long article* in Wired about the so-called “standard for influence” (for the record, I have no Klout). It starts with a guy who goes in for a job interview, only to be turned down when his Klout score isn’t high enough. So he sets out to raise it — tweeting all the time, “engaging” with high-score accounts, and the like.

I don’t get it. Why would you want to work for a company that values Klout over smarts, strategy, and people who forge genuine connections with the people around them?

*You don’t have to read the whole article; much of it covers familiar ground. But it’s worth skipping down to the last couple of paragraphs, which I think say it all.

Photo by xJason.Rogersx (Flickr).