Short and tweet: Pope should use Twitter to communicate simply and succinctly

Pope Benedict XVI joining the Twitterati is evidently a winwin proposition both for the Pontiff and the microblogging site. In a world dominated not by the holy Trinity of Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti but Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry, the contributions of @Pontifex will certainly lend some gravitas to the Twitter pantheon; the Dalai Lama (with 5.6 million followers) would also probably welcome the company of afellow spiritual leader.

The interests of the majority of Twitterati are manifest as pop stars and cinema celebrities dominate, yet the Pope with 1.2 billion followers of his church if not his Twitter account, may prove to be a formidable octogenarian rival.

By notching up five lakh ‘followers’ on his very first day on the Twitterscape, that too without sending out a single tweet so far in any of the eight languages he will communicate in, the Pope is set to overtake most celebrity tweeters, including India’s top 10.

Not surprisingly, except for Sachin Tendulkar, the rest are all Bollywood stars led by Amitabh Bachchan at four millionodd; but they collectively still fall some four million short of Lady Gaga’s 32 million loony tweeps.

The Pope’s pithy pronouncements on Twitter, bound as they would be by the temporal constraints of 140 characters — give or take a URL or two — could become the most succinct theological revelations since Moses received the Ten Commandments hewn concisely on stone tablets.

For a generation not inclined to delve into complicated thoughts or ideas, Twitter could become the medium to communicate simply to an elusive genre. The Pope, therefore, would be wise to consider expanding his brief from merely tweeting the contents of his weekly general audience, Sunday blessings and homilies to more trending topics