They've been planning this for a while and quietly rolled out phase one last night — Twitter's Verified Accounts program hopes to cut down on celebrity impersonations and to help legitimate business entities by establishing them as "approved" or "real," although the process by which the company is determining authenticity isn't exactly transparent (TechCrunch's Mike Arrington for example claims they never actually personally contacted him to verify his account but bestowed the badge nonetheless). Still, if you're interested in getting verified, which places a Verified Account badge at the upper right of your Twitter page, head on over and make a request, although it sounds like Twitter is being choosy about who they're letting in one phase one:

"We're starting with well-known accounts that have had problems with impersonation or identity confusion. (For example, well-known artists, athletes, actors, public officials, and public agencies). We may verify more accounts in the future, but because of the cost and time required, we're only testing this feature with a small set of folks for the time being. As the test progresses we may be able to expand this test to more accounts over the next several months."

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