There has been a lot of debate over the last month about Google’s real name policy for their new social network, Google+. Despite the strict rules that Google had put in place so that pseudonyms and nicknames were prohibited, there were still many celebrity impersonators with accounts on Google+. Slowly Google began weeding out the fake Paris Hiltons, and William Shatners of the world, but there was no real way to know for a fact if the ones left were actually legitimate.
This all changed last evening when Google+ announced their “verified account” feature. The new verified image will appear to the right of a users name (image above) as a check mark, and when moused over, will say “Verified account”. Thus far many celebrities, as well as users who are in a lot of circles, have been verified. Having said this, there is still a ways to go, and Google intends to slowly add to the number of verified users in the near future. Below is a video from Wen-Ai Yu, explaining the new Verified Accounts feature.
This addition certainly makes it easier to follow legitimate celebrities and public figures, and gives users the peace of mind of knowing that these people are in fact who they claim to be, and not imposters. It will be interesting to see what criteria Google uses in the future to determine just who warrants the verified designation.