By Kate Kaye, Clickz.com
Twitter won’t bestow a verified account on just anyone. In what appears to be the most recent case, it took media royalty status to convince the company to hand out its seal of approval. After joining Twitter February 3, self-proclaimed King of All Media Howard Stern has already received a Verified Account on Twitter.
Twitter is “way more fun than Facebook. Facebook all of a sudden looks old to me,” said Stern during his Sirius XM radio show this morning. Stern spent the morning recapping his Twitter trial, discussing his experiences tweeting while watching the Super Bowl, and acknowledging his still-limited understanding of how to use the platform. “I’ll get the hang of it,” he told his listeners who subscribe to Sirius to hear his long-running show. By this afternoon he had collected over 143,000 followers.
Twitter last year said it had discontinued the account verification service and planned to build a better means of verification. The current system – evidently still offered to a select few – places a checkmark alongside an account name to certify that the account actually belongs to said person or entity.
However, when political candidates and office holders have attempted to attain verified accounts, some have been left in the cold. One consultant for Republican digital agency Engage said she had attempted to verify Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s Twitter account to no avail. Neither McDonnell’s @BobMcDonnell nor the @GovernorVA accounts are verified.
“We continue to very selectively verify accounts most at risk for impersonation on a one-off and highly irregular basis,” a Twitter spokesperson told ClickZ News.
To read more, visit: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2024769/twitter-bestows-verified-account-howard-stern-wait
