On First Tweets

The Office of Management and Budget deserves points for joining the Twitterverse in a staid and simple way Tuesday, appropriate for its role as the White House's business branch.

"Happy to be here," the OMB press office said, before directing readers to a fuller introduction on the agency's blog.

Directness is usually preferable to passionate intensity in the canon of first Tweets.

"Just met w/Cabinet re unacceptable violence against HS+college women," Vice President Joe Biden breathlessly Tweeted July 13 in his first personal post to his office's 11-day-old Twitter stream. "Tasked agencies to mobilize all assets to attack this problem."

The vice president's staff was left to follow up a while later.

"Yes, that was a direct tweet from VP Biden on an issue he cares very much about," a staffer explained. "Stay tuned for more, his tweets will always be signed '-VP.'"

OMB loses points, though, when it comes to that explanatory blog entry, which opens "We deal with a lot of big numbers in our daily work here at OMB, but now we will start focusing on a small one: 140."

Comparing the complexity and heft of your daily work to the brevity of a Tweet is as old as the social media site itself. And, unfortunately, the prize for most complex topic tackled by Tweet probably dates back to 2009.