Twitter Announces Verified Accounts

The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that Twitter is planning the introduction of verified accounts.

Twitter will soon offer verified accounts for certain user groups

Twitter deserves praise for this move, as the growing number of impersonators/fakes/squatters is close to becoming a serious blight on the service. Many of the Australian companies I talk to are turned off by this and also the effort involved in reclaiming a brand or branded twitter account.

As the WSJ article noted, this move will potentially create a nice revenue stream for Twitter. I personally feel there is real merit in charging certain groups of users for a verified account. My advice to our enterprise clients will be to utilise the service once it’s launched.

For companies wanting a professional and consistent presence in the social space this move fits nicely with the rumoured move by Facebook to introduce vanity URL’s.