WASHINGTON (CNN) - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who built a communications empire by fusing technology and journalism, entered the Twittersphere Tuesday when he sent out his first micro-blog message. And he did it with a twist.
Bloomberg, who is seeking a third term in November, sent out a note that was written in English and Spanish. @MikeBloomberg wrote: "Good morning! Trying this out during my spanish lesson. Como se dice 'first tweet'?"
News quickly spread around that the mayor's first tweet was partly in Spanish, but it is not the first time a language other than English has been used to convey a message by a politician on Twitter. For example, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has a Twitter account that only tweets his news in Spanish. And the White House not only tweets in English and Spanish, but has also sent out a message in Farsi.
Twitter does not maintain data on how many Hispanics use the social networking or how many people tweet in Spanish. Yukari Matsuzawa, who heads Twitter's International team, did tell CNN via e-mail, "It is very exciting though that Mayor Bloomberg is tweeting in Spanish! We hope to encourage more international tweets."
From CNN Politics
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Wow, this is SOOOOO exciting.
Here I was getting all bogged down in financial crises, health care, global warming, Obama breaking promises again, terrorism, dead parts of the ocean.
Silly me.
ME NO WANA HABLA SPANISH.keep it american and keep our jobs and vote out this clown or fire his butt.You politicians forget we americans are the one who votes in this country or buy you products.viva america.down with mexico and latin america.
I'm sure this was a totally off the cuff remark. No strategy or ulterior motives here. No sir. He does stuff like this all the time. Yep, he's mister spontaneous.
I like hearing he is taking spanish, that seems like a good example for kids
Good to see a Caucasian Yankee that can speak Spanish – hopefully.
Persian?!? You mean Farci? No wonder the U.S. lags behind everyone else in education. We need to be speaking 4 or 5 languages before we get left in the dust.
Hasn't Sarah Palin (the word salad queen) already proven that any "twit can tweet" regardless of language or ability to deliver a statement in understandable English?
Last I checked, this was an English-speaking nation. If you want Balkanization of the US, then go right ahead and promote Spanish and Arabic...
TCM can be the new Shemp with twitter.He uses at least a hundred names on the same blog.haha