Royal household turns to Twitter

Buckingham Palace has revealed that the Royal Family has now joined the Twitter micro-blogging revolution.

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.

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.

"The intention," she explained, "is that it is a news service rather than a personal voice."

But she said both the Queen and the Prince of Wales had been informed about the Twitter acccount.

Oversight of the @BritishMonarchy account will be split between Buckingham Palace and Clarence House.

The first "tweets" have already been sent and include links to a YouTube video of Prince William talking about the charity Skill Force, and pictures of the Queen receiving the new poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

In February 2009, an overhaul of the Royal.gov.uk website was completed that put more video and background material on the website. The Queen also has her own YouTube channel, launched in 2007, hosting video of key events such as the Christmas message.

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