It took a while, but UF finally has an official Twitter account.
Steve Orlando, UF spokesman, said UF's press office just couldn't resist the Twitter hysteria any longer, so he finally registered an account - which can be found at twitter.com/UFNow - on Wednesday.
"You can't ignore it," Orlando said of the popular messaging service, which allows users to post messages with a maximum of 140 characters. "You do it at your own peril."
He said UF decided to bite the bullet after a member of the press team attended a conference with other university press officers where they discussed the merits of Twitter.
So what has UF tweeted about?
The first two posts are about two books written by UF professors that appear on Oprah's summer reading list.
As of Wednesday night, UF had seven followers and was following the tweets of Wyclef Jean, Nick Cannon and John Mayer, among others.
Orlando said those accounts were automatically added when he signed up and he would figure out how to remove them later.
Orlando said he doesn't quite understand why other people Twitter about some of the things they do.
"It's usually about, 'Oh jeez, I just went to the bathroom,'" he said. "Who cares?"
He said UF's tweets will usually be limited to about one per day and will likely be a summary of the most important news release of the day or other UF news that didn't make it into a news release.
A few UF colleges, like the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Journalism and Communications, already have Twitter accounts.
