You will notice that underneath some links shared on Mastodon, the author byline can be clicked to open the author’s associated fediverse account, right in the app. This highlights writers and journalists that are active on the fediverse, and makes it easier than ever to follow them and keep up with their future work—potentially across different publications.
The handle can be any fediverse account, not just Mastodon. That includes Flipboard, Threads, WordPress (with the ActivityPub plugin installed), PeerTube, Pixelfed, and many others.
That’s why they are starting only with verified sites. To combat the spam feature. But of course, they are creating a closed system with that. Which also is not the best