Facebook has a new app, and while anyone can download it, they won’t actually be able to use it unless they're a Facebook-recognized and verified famous individuals. The app that called Facebook Mentions, requires a "Verified" account to log in, and is built to help people manage their public figure pages on the social network.
The app is designed and made specifically to identify public figures like athletes, music stars, celebrities, other so-called "influencers" and politicians or other government officials.
The Mentions app allows its verified users to see what their fans are saying about them in a dedicated feed, and offer a mobile capability of starting a Q&A.
Mentions looks similar to the normal Facebook app on the surface with a vertical feed and navigation bar at the bottom. But actually the app has been refined from the original Facebook app to give a reworked. Its main interface, the News Feed, is split into "Following" and "Trending". The top of notification pages will reportedly populate with comments and exclamations from other celebrities and famous people, and also trending topics where the user can contribute.
With the app, Facebook is giving the platform for people where they can respond easier and faster. Mentions delivers a timeline of posts that reference that user. With Mentions, Facebook is trying to lire celebrities and famous people from using similar services such as live Q&A on Reddit. Facebook has also trailed Twitter in attracting famous individuals. Twitter introduced its "verified account" program in 2009, while Facebook borrowed the similar "verified" initiative in May 2013.
And since accounts on Facebook are prone to hacks, accounts that belong to famous people are targeted even more. Facebook has implemented a two-step authentication process for Mentions to reduce the risk of hijacked profiles.
After releasing the app, Facebook also released some numbers around its public figures accounts. The social network giant stated that it has about 800 million people are connected with these verified famous people's pages. And with that massive number, Facebook believes that it's important for fans to keep connections with their idols. There are also more than a billion interactions between these public 'elite' figures and their fans on Facebook every week.
"With so many people connected to public figures, it's really hard to manage those interactions," said Facebook Product Manager Allison Swope. "We realized we could create a way to make that easier."
Several celebrities and public figures have already been quietly using the app, including Mariah Carey, Whoopi Goldberg, Josh Duhamel, Ed Sheeran, Austin Mahone, Tyrese Gibson, Rachel Zoe, Arianna Huffington, Bill Nye and Nick Kristof.
Facebook said that these public figures produce twice as much content each day as they did before using the Mentions app.
For "unverified" people, they have to request access before using the app that was first available in the U.S. and for iOS users only.
Mentions was built under Facebook's Creative Labs", which has been spinning out Facebook features into separate apps and building new products. Creative Labs is the brand behind experimental Facebook apps such as Slingshot, Paper, and Home. Other older standalone apps like Poke and Camera have been discontinued.
Mentions is open only to people, not brands and companies as originally stated.
