EmpireAvenue for Klout networking and analyzing reach

Empire Avenue is a website designed to treat social media like the stock market.

I've been a member of the site for several months now (you can find my account right here, Carey Martell @ Empire Avenue) , though I'll admit that I haven't been an exceptionally active user.

This is because the majority of the Empire Avenue users seem to be engaged in a game of Klout manipulation, and I really don't care that much about my Klout score. I'm not involved in an industry where it really impacts me (don't know what Klout is? More info can be found here).

I originally got into Empire Avenue because I was attracted to the idea of a game that measures how effective your social media marketing efforts are, and tracks the rise and fall of your "reach".

However over the months since I made my account, the site has been re-designed to emphasize the stock trading and Klout farming aspect. Which is fine if you're into that sort of thing, but I don't have that much free time in my day.

However, Empire Avenue eventually introduced a new feature that caught my interest; Missions. 

With Missions you can pay other users a virtual currency (earned from others buying stock in you, or from the dividends you earn from stock you buy) to perform tasks for you, such as 'liking' a Facebook Fan Page or a Youtube Video,

I actually tried testing it out using one of my videos that was dislike bombed a few months back, but the results have been rather underwhelming. It turns out that the 'Like' button on Empire Avenue does not actually add any 'likes' to a Youtube video; instead, it just gives the user their virtual currency reward.

Only a small number of the people who perform the mission will actually take several seconds to go to the video itself and click 'like', then claim their reward. So this is a flawed design on the part of Empire Avenue, because only the most honest of person is going to jump that extra hoop.

And a website where the majority of users are trying to manipulate their Klout scores by liking everything and anything doesn't exactly breed honesty among its users.

The Missions are also rather expensive; you can expect to pay at least 100k in the virtual currency just to get a small mission going. That amount can take awhile to acquire if you're not willing to fully immerse yourself into the stock market trading.

My verdict is that the site doesn't have a lot of value for Youtube Partners who want to drive more traffic to their videos or learn how to do so, but it might be useful if you're looking for other people who want to game Klout. That seems to be the task the entire community is devoted to.