Have you noticed that a lot of celebrities have set really old pictures as their avatars for Twitter? I was wondering what this was all about.  If I was a celeb, I wouldn’t want the world to see my high school yearbook photo, complete with braces and the like.  Why, then are celebrities like Diddy, John Mayer, and John Legend using old pictures for their avatars.

I thought perhaps it was to show that it’s actually them - so when you’re following Diddy, you’re actually following Diddy, not some 14 year-old wannabe punk.  But now Twitter has launched a new Beta service called Twitter Verified.

Basically they’re just making sure that important people are who they say they are.  And if they pass, they get a big ole checkmark  in the corner of their Twitter page.

Diddy, John Mayer, and John Legend are all Twitter Verified, so what’s with the kid pics? Maybe they just think they look cool.