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President Barack Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, is now on Twitter with an official White House account. Here’s his momentous first tweet: “Learning about ‘the Twitter’ – easing into this with first tweet – any tips?”

 

Gibbs later told The Associated Press (News - Alert) “I opened it today. I was watching a twitter feed while the President visited the briefing room last week.”

 

Within hours the press secretary reported 6,200 followers. Agence France-Presse later reported that “Gibbs followed it up the next day with: “Wow – in less than 30 hours almost 17K of you are following – amazing – watch out Kim Kardashian! Thanks to all for the smart tips!’”

 

As AFP says, Gibbs might want to lower his sights a bit, as Kardashian’s Twitter account, @kimkardashian, has nearly three million followers.

 

Ponder that comment on the state of our society for a moment: Kim Kardashian has three million Twitter followers.

 

Gibbs later tweeted the URL for a White House response to a letter sent from House Republican Leader John Boehner and House Republican Whip Eric Cantor regarding the proposed bipartisan health care summit. Hey it’s no more fluffy than Kim Kardashian posting what she had for lunch.

You might want to think twice about what you reveal to Gibbs via tweets: As he says, since it’s an official White House account, comments and messages received through it are subject to the Presidential Records Act and may be archived.

 

According to Bloggers Blog, “The launch of the Press Secretary Twitter account comes shortly after news that Obama administration is seeking a Social Networks Manager to manage the President’s Facebook, Twitter and MySpace (News - Alert) accounts.” 

 

So if the official White House Web page and seeing President Obama on the news and YouTube (News - Alert) and appearing on various TV shows 24/7 isn’t enough exposure for you, well, there’s one more way to get your official White House fix.

 

Last month Broadband Genie reported that “Twitter has managed to attract more than 75 million users since its launch. However, not only is the growth rate of new users slowing, much of the current userbase is inactive.”