In what has to be one of the oddest, and least nimble — but purposeful Public Policy gaffes and pre-planned Public Relations stumbles — Twitter have doubled down on the bifurcation of their service into 103,000 Verified accounts vs. 271,000,000 active, monthly, non-Verified know-nothings:
And today we’re beginning to roll out two new features to verified users on the Twitter mobile apps: alerts when another verified user follows them on both the Android and iPhone apps and the option to view their verified followers from their own profile on Twitter for iOS only. We hope these two features will help verified users easily connect with each other so we can continue to deliver those only-on-Twitter conversations to users.
Yes, out of 271 million active monthly Twitter users, only 103k are “Verified.”
Why does Twitter feel the ongoing need to not only publicly announce a further distancing of their Verified accounts from the rest of their users, but to also appear proud to offer an enhanced, hidden, service that, basically, nobody will ever get to use?
Can you name another social media network that works so deliberately, and so clumsily, to separate what they believe to be the wheat from the chaff — all performed in public with a smile and a shoeshine?
For some reason, Twitter views its future as an elitist platform filled with celebrities who only interact with each other. The non-egalitarian social network is now the contemptuous daily quid pro quo — and I’m not sure how any of it makes any sense in the realm of human antiquity or business enterprise prosperity.
If Twitter needs eyes to sell their advertising — are the Verifieds going to lead that charge — or are the millions of others who actually read and interact with the service on an hourly basis those who do the dirty advertising eye lifting?
Why does Twitter value the name over the number, the fame over the glorified, and the shine over the shoe?
It all just rings odd and phony to me — because you’ll never really get to experience the “real” Twitter unless you’re Verified — but, of course, there’s no recourse for the unVerified to ever become Verified because Twitter works that angle on whims and whimsy; not great attributes for a company that needs as many active eyes on the service as possible to keep their investor overlords happy.
So the plebby poor majority are supposed to just keep quiet, and keep Tweeting and keep on logging in — even though there’s no chance they’ll ever be Verified by the bird — and the entire network is settling to take a nosedive directly into its white-checkmark Verified blue seal, because that’s all that matters to the company. Those who build the foundation of the service every single day are not allowed past the Verified blue velvet feather rope line.
3 Comments