British Royal Family Joins Twitter

by Rich

Friday, July 10, 2009 at 07:08 PM EDT

The BBC News site has a report today that the British Royal Family has can now be followed on Twitter, the popular “micro-blogging” service:

The Twitter account @BritishMonarchy has just gone live, following several weeks of testing.

A spokeswoman said it had signed up to harness the popularity of Twitter to spread news about the Royal Family.

This addition will doubtless complement the existing Royal YouTube channel. H.M. the Queen may be getting on in years, but her “family firm” actually does a very good job of keeping up with communications technology.

Unfortunately, the glimpse of royal life provided will not be as intimate as you might hope; the intention apparently is to use Twitter for announcements:

It will provide details of royal engagements as well as link to information about what members of the family are doing.

But the spokeswoman said neither the Queen nor other members of the Royal Family would be tweeting personally.

This is probably wise, given the penchant of some members of the Royal Family for exploring their tonsils with their toes.