Klout's funding news this morning was quickly drowned out by Square's funding and then both were drowned out by Groupon's gargantuan round . But for Klout, the funding round was pretty significant. In raising a surprisingly large $8.5 million, the company was singling its decision not to take a flip and to try to build a big company out of measuring influence online. For Klout founder and CEO Joe Fernandez, it's a human version of page rank and the opportunity can be just as big. Fernandez stopped by TechCrunch to talk about the inside drama of the round, including the team's wrestling over whether to flip-or-not, whose money to take and what all that cash will be used for. In a future segment, we dive into my concern: Can influence online really be accurately measured?