Rupert Murdoch joins Twitter

MUMBAI: News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has defied his traditions and joined the micro-blogging platform Twitter while on a holiday to end 2011.

The media mogul who has been in quite a controversy over the past year was reportedly joined by his wife Wendi-deng. One of his first tweets was about his current reading material (“The Rational Optimist”); this
followed up with a tweet criticising the recent Steve Jobs biography saying, “Steve Jobs biog interesting but unfair. Family must hate.”

Murdoch is operating with the handle rupertmurdoch, it was reported. While at first many thought that it was a fake account, Twitter chairman Jack Dorsey and a spokesperson from News International confirmed that it was indeed the real Murdoch tweeting.

In keeping with his track record, Murdoch’s tweets have stirred a storm and within two days of starting the account, he had an estimated 88,900 followers.

Though new to the world of Twitter, Murdoch succeeded in grabbing eyeballs with his tweet “Maybe Brits have too many holidays for broke country!” This particular post was then taken down by the 80-year-old media veteran and his wife defended in her tweets that it was a ‘joke’.