Why verifying ‘everyone’ will make Twitter obsolete.

Twitter is a social network. Twitter has a verification method that places a tiny blue checker on a user’s profile to signify that the user’s profile is certified as true. Authentic. Extraordinary. And so forth.

So yesterday, there was a huge buzz on Twitter after a link appeared and offered users a chance to have their accounts verified. Whether or not it was a spoof site is beside the point. The next hour or so saw many “your verification ID is bla bla bla bla bla bla” tweets that could only have meant one thing. Very many people gave access to this “Verification App” to have themselves verified.

Then cometh the Big Q: Why would you want to do that?

I really understand why everyone wants to be verified. A verification badge shows you have been accepted. Chances that you will be followed (and/or retweeted) because you are verified shoot to 79% as compared to 20% when you are not verified. Shouldn’t Twitter be against this? Seems like a raw model; to myself and some who I spoke to.

Okay, now the facts:

Human interaction theories exhibit existence of social classes. Social classes are then predefined by how much money one can spend, the places they hang out and even the kind of content they produce. OOMF can afford to tweet about a Louis Vuitton Day-Bed because his social status puts him there. This then puts in my reasoning. A twitter Verification badge is really like an asset. The reason gold has been, is and always will be a primal source of value is its scarcity. The minute Twitter starts handing out verification badges will be the end of Twitter. Social media websites are really societies. Essentially virtual societies that thrive on users’ wants to move from one social status to another; normally a higher one. That is why celebrities have millions of followers on twitter and everyone else probably had to start at zero.

If everyone has a Twitter verification badge, you better pray that they come up with a new Twitter Gold. If not, that is the start of the end of it. Think about it. Why do we stop and stare at a BMW or a Custom Made S-Class Mercedes? Because not everyone can own them. They are the coveted Gold of the motorists. If everyone had one, the buzz would die and move on to the next best thing that not everyone has.

Don’t you think giving everyone Twitter verification is like inflation, but on social media? I call it Digital Inflation. Don’t enable them.

Written by: juuchini on January 6, 2012.

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