Russian President Dmitry Medvedev kicked off his tour of technology companies today with a visit to the San Francisco office of Twitter, where he signed up for an account and posted his first "tweet."
"Hello everyone! I'm on Twitter, and this is my first tweet," Medvedev wrote, in Russian, on the KremlinRussia account (and translated by an official English-language version).
Medvedev is no luddite -- he already has a blog on LiveJournal, which is wildly popular in Russia, and posts personal video updates to the Kremlin.ru website.
The meeting wasn't overly formal, save for the massive security detail, with the diminutive Medvedev wearing jeans and Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams doing likewise.
Of course, all anyone had to say to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was "President" and "Twitter" and his attendance was virtually assured -- demonstrating who's the real power user, Newsom sent out four messages from the event to Medvedev's two.
"The visit, our first-ever by a head of state, was a milestone for Twitter," wrote Twitter communications director Matt Graves in an official announcement, though in the realpolitik sense, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin might privately beg to disagree that his former chief of staff is actually the head of state in Russia.
Speaking of bruised egos, news of Medvedev's visit to Twitter might sting a little when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg finds out.
Zuckerberg, who recently admitted having "paid too much attention" to the micro-blogging service, and is looking to countries like Russia where Facebook doesn't have much of a presence to grow Facebook to one billion users.
Then again, Zuckerberg was hanging out in Cannes at an advertising festival and did briefly meet British Prime Minister David Cameron, so there's that.
Medvedev will continue his Bay Area tour by heading to Silicon Valley for visits with Apple, Cisco and Yandex.
Photo by Twitter's Jillian West.
