Pope Benedict makes Twitter

Pope Benedict posts his first tweet from the Twitter account @pontifex during his weekly audience at the Vatican on Wednesday. The message was written in eight languages on the pope's eight Twitter accounts. It thanked people for their generous response. Before he had sent a single tweet Benedict XVI already had more than a million followers.

The 85-year-old pontiff had been personally very keen to get himself a Twitter account, the Vatican insisted, though the microblogging site itself was no less eager to help. The company has a department dedicated to extending its brand among celebrity and influential figures, and reportedly employs around 20 staff solely to recruit high profile tweeters. Twitter's head of social innovation, Claire Diaz-Ortiz, had travelled to Rome to prepare the Vatican team for the big moment; after Benedict's inaugural message she tweeted on her own feed @claire: "The Pope is on Twitter. #done"