This Week in Apps: Paid Meta Verification, New App from Instagram Founders and Spotify AI DJ

Welcome to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest news on mobile operating systems, mobile apps, and the overall app economy.

The app economy in 2023 has struggled, with consumer spending falling last year for the first time by 2% to $167 billion, according to data.ai's "State of Mobile" report . However, downloads continue to grow, up 11% year-over-year in 2022 to reach 255 billion. Consumers are also spending more time on mobile apps than ever before. On Android devices alone, the number of hours spent in 2022 increased by 9%, reaching 4.1 trillion.

This Week in Apps provides a way to keep up with the rapidly changing industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, seed funding, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.

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Meta starts selling blue badges… but also security and customer service

Image Credits: Bloomberg/Contributor/Getty Images

In a stealth announcement over the weekend, Meta announced a radical change to Facebook and Instagram with news that it would offer to sell its verified blue badge to customers, taking inspiration from the Twitter playbook of 'Elon Musk. The paid subscription also includes other features, including enhanced identity theft protection and direct access to customer support, as well as greater visibility through enhanced messages. It is initially rolling out in Australia and New Zealand.

Twitter's first paid verification attempt proved problematic, as users purchased the badge and then changed their name and profile picture to follow other prominent accounts (including Musk) and businesses. Twitter had to suspend the service and readjust.

Seeming to learn from Twitter's mistakes, Meta's Paid Badge has a few more rules in place.

To begin with, users must verify their identity with a government-issued ID card, and then will not be able to change their profile name, username, date of birth, or photo after paying for the cheking process. If they later want to make a change, they will need to unsubscribe and then be verified again. This greatly reduces bad actors, but can be a bit of a pain for creators who like to refresh their photos from time to time. However, that may not always be the case - Meta said it's working on a feature that will eventually allow users to change these settings through a new verification process that won't require them to cancel and re-subscribe. …it's just not ready yet.

Also note: Meta Verified will not verify users on Facebook and Instagram; users will need to purchase separate plans for the two apps, and Facebook's subscription, for now, is only sold on the web. That means customers will pay $27 per month at current prices to access this badge and other in-app benefits from Meta. (Subscription is $11.99 per month on web and $14.99 per month on iOS or Android.)

The trend towards paid verification is a potentially burdensome decision for social networks...