The Google+ social networking service has been a big success so far with tens of millions of people joining in the past couple of months. That includes a number of celebrities who have decided to have a presence in this new and growing network. But until just a couple of days ago Google was unable to verify if that Google+ profile for William Shatner was, in fact, made by William Shatner.
This week the company announced that it has started to put in verification badges for Google+ profiles. According to a Google+ post by Google"s Wen-Ai Yu, verified names will have a grey checkmark logo next to their Google+ name. If you move your cursor on that checkmark it will expand and show "verified name". Yu also said that ordinary Google+ users won"t be able to have their profile verified yet, saying, "For now, we’re focused on verifying public figures, celebrities, and people who have been added to a large number of Circles." She added that verified support should be expanded in the future. However she didn"t go into detail on exactly how Google makes sure a Google+ profile is created by the person who supposedly is in charge of it.
Having verified profiles on Google+ should make the service much more inviting for celebs and public figures to join and communicate with other Google+ users. In theory, that should also help expand the number of Google+ users in general. Nearly two months after its public launch Google is still keeping Google+ as an invite only service.