Facebook Reportedly Testing Celebrity-Only VIP App

Facebook reportedly has a VIP-Only app tailored for celebrities in the works. The app, which sources say Facebook is currently testing among a small group of famous people, lets celebrities easily monitor Facebook chatter about themselves on any mobile.

Stars can quickly respond to fans on the fly and become a part of the conversation, through an app that sources say is comparable to Twitter's timeline.

The project, which is in its early days, is another part of Facebook’s push to encourage celebrities to share more stuff on the site. And that’s part of Facebook’s larger push to compete more directly with Twitter for “public” sharing.

The idea: If a star pushed out a status update to fans that caused a rather large amount of chatter — like, say, Kobe Bryant’s late-night torrent of scattered thoughts from a few months ago — the new app would make it easier to see the swirling commentary from fans, and mix it up with them.

“We are currently testing some mobile features designed to help public figures interact with their fans,” a Facebook spokesperson told AllThingsD. “We are testing these features with a small group of partners and will share more details should we roll it out more widely.”

Most of the times, big celebrities hire a dedicated team or person to manage their social media feeds or simply use third party apps to manage all their feeds, so it will be interesting to see if Facebook's service picks up.

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