Twitter has begun to verify accounts, and I guess this means it has left beta. So who’s getting verified? Michael Arrington (@arrington, but not @techcrunch interestingly enough), for one. This is Twitter’s explanation:

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.

I think this is a good thing, but let’s not forget that people without the verified badge (like me or @blogherald) still can be real…!

More on Techmeme as always.