Twitter strikes deal with Gracenote to make it easier for musicians to get verified accounts

Twitter has closed a deal with the music database company Gracenote, which will make it easier and faster for musicians and bands to get a ‘Verified’ account.

Twitter’s hope with this deal is that Gracenote will help streamline its verification process, thanks to its existing relationships with labels, artists and managers. Without unveiling details of the new process, Gracenote said that it would “develop tools” for this purpose.

It is well-known that verification is a headache for Twitter; to avoid mishaps, it requires human intervention, which makes it hard to scale. In practical terms, this means that ‘Verified’ blue badges remain a privilege of the happy few.

This situation has been particularly problematic when it comes to the music world; as we reported in January, Twitter announced a partnership to let developers link musicians’ tweets to their tracks. Yet, as we pointed out at the time, the fact that developers could use verified accounts as a trusted data source within their apps meant that Twitter had to improve its verification process. It now seems that the platform has now solved this problem.

Music is one of the most popular topics on Twitter, and today’s announcement is also a recognition of Twitter’s importance as a platform where artists connect with their fans:

“Twitter is becoming the communication platform for artists and other celebrities to connect with their fans,” said Stephen White, President of Gracenote. “Gracenote’s work with labels, artists and artist management, along with the scope and breadth of our database, will allow us to identify and qualify these artists effectively and efficiently, providing Verified Account holders with a much improved verification experience and giving Twitter users deeper information about the artists they love.”

It remains to be seen whether or not Twitter will adopt a similar approach for other verticals, but outsourcing verification could certainly be an interesting fix for this ailing process, which is currently closed to the public.