More perks for the elite: Twitter is adding a new feature for famous people that will let them know when another famous person has followed them on Twitter.
It s part of a strategy to encourage celebrities, thought leaders and other influential people to use Twitter more often, especially to engage in public conversations – which are likely to be followed with interest, and even re-tweeted, by the masses. (And when we say the masses, we include ourselves, of course.) Twitter also encourages celebs – or their management – to share exclusive photos and video on the service.
If the strategy sounds familiar, it s because Facebook has been aggressively pursuing a similar course. Just last month, we wrote about a new Facebook app designed for celebrities to help them post on the social network and respond to posts from other famous people.
Twitter s new feature is for what it calls Verified Users, or those people who have a high enough public profile that Twitter has felt it necessary to verify – as signified by a blue check mark next to their name – that their accounts are genuine and not operated by an imposter. The service already offered those users the ability to filter their mentions to more easily see when another verified user has dropped their name in a Tweet.
Naturally, we re waiting to see what William Shatner thinks of the new feature.
(Image from Twitter blog)
