I recently had an idea for hand soap. I though it would be cool to have a counter on the bottle so you could see how many times you wash your hands in a day. To my surprise Softsoap wasn’t on Twitter and I had to reach them through Facebook. Why not Twitter? hmm.

I did some digging and found Klout. Klout allows you to add all of your networks to their service (like Facebook, Twitter, etc.) in order to calculate how much presence you have on the web. It displays your social reach and whether or not the people in your network are influenced by your content. Brands also give you perks when you talk about them. The more retweets, comments, and links you have, the more your celebrity status grows along with the possibly of large perks from brands (as apposed to small discounts).

From the overview they seem to present Klout as a way to influence people. But some people think Klout’s value is measured in data and is a way to monetize self-branded Klout users with advertising dollars.

So with brands leaving twitter and going to Klout, what does that mean for twitter? We’ve already seen Twitter’s new Brand Pages, which is an effort to regain brand interest in the service. But how else will they adapt and who will adopt? Hopefully Karen Wickre, who just left Google for Twitter, has some insight.