Google is reportedly drawing up a “celebrity acquisition plan” to help publicise its new Google+ social network to become well-known by prominent actors, musicians and other public figures, CNN has revealed.
CNN learned of Google’s plans for its three-week-old social network via a number of emails from Google, which highlights a new system to verify the identity of a public figure when they sign up for the service.
The system would operate similarly to the way Twitter authenticates celebrities on its service, with Google reported to be pondering the inclusion of a button that would be present on legitimate profiles. This would match Twitter’s “Verified” icon, which Twitter began using to verify profiles but started to relax use of the feature as of late.
Brett Schulte, a Hollywood consultant and organizer of social-media gatherings called Tweet House, believes Google will ask public figures to fax over copies of their driving license to the company.
Google however, declined to comment, simply stating:
“We aren’t yet sharing any details on future plans around Google+. We plan to add a lot of features and functionality to Google+ over time.”
Google+ has already seen a number of tech-savvy celebrities join the social network, with many gaining a presence on the service via their public relations teams. The search giant has already amassed 10 million users of its service and will hope a large number of high-profile endorsements will result in a more registrations and increased interaction on Google+.
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