Forget Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey, there’s a genuine queen on Twitter these days: Rania Al Abdullah, Queen of Jordan, joined the tweeting masses yesterday and she really has a feel for the micro-medium too!
And yes, it’s the real deal since it was Matthias Lüfkens who filled us in on her presence on the micro-sharing service, and since Lüfkens works for the World Economic Forum in Davos (where Queen Rania is always a guest) he would know better than us. I asked for final confirmation and Lüfkens responded that he’s 100% sure since he had received an e-mail from Marzia Bisignani (who works for Jordan’s Royal Court).
So in case you were in doubt if Queen Rania’s life is more interesting than yours: about two hours ago, she tweeted “Just choppered to airport to receive Pope. Husband piloting, he got acrobatic to quiet butterflies in stomach 
told u he was action man!”.
She likes to relax too, though: “Wknd begins for us, watching Matthew McConaughey in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Glad I’m not single. It’s vicious out there!”
Her highness started out with the web version, then switched to TweetDeck but seems to do her mobile tweeting with twibble. I’m sure Loïc Le Meur is bummed that she hasn’t tried out Seesmic Desktop yet.
I’m just genuinely psyched she joined altogether. I’ve been following her official YouTube channel ever since she started one and I’m always impressed with her views on society and education, and the way she uses digital means to get her message across.
Now go follow her.
OMG we have had a queen on http://www.worstpizza.com for a year and got no covereage (LOL) the reviewers name is really PizzaQueen
Hey she is sexy! A full photo would have been better though.
I did a profile of her awhile back. Definitely one of the sexiest and coolest people on the web.
http://smartbab...n-rania-of.html
Not only is she beautiful, articulate, and socially aware … but she is also one of the most adept users of technology in the world. Believe it or not, she used to work for Apple computer and is a now the only royalty videoblogger in the world.
Queen Rania is a passionate advocate for women and children in the region and in the world as a whole.
She set up the Madrasati initiative aimed at renovating Jordan’s most dilapidated public schools.
She was named the third most beautiful woman in the world in the 2005 by Harpers & Queen magazine.
In addition, she was the youngest queen in the world when she ascended to the throne.
To be a princess is probably every little girl’s childish fantasy. But Queen Rania of Jordan shows that with intelligence and poise, a young girl can aspire to be much more than just the wife of someone important.
From India (now working in Singapore)
Anjali Sen
This shameless Queen contributed nothing but her good looks to humanity. I dare you to criticize a single policy of hers within Jordan, you would suffer torture in a jail cell which is what she and her husband are putting thousands of dissidents through. There is no free speech within the country and nothing is being done on her part to protect activists or support potential victims of honor crimes, which the country considers to be justifiable.
She is pitiful but what is more pitiful is watching you all praise her without having the slightest idea the dictatorship that she’s a part of.
You’re all embarrassing to watch. Shame on your ignorance.
She likes the Onion! Hilarious.
me wanna follow! =]
Ok enough now.
We understand Twitter, we get it.
Please any chance of some more “non-Tweet” news?
Its getting like “Twitcrunch.com”
There are some non-believers out there:
http://www.guar...-a-suckers-game
Twitter is the internet equivalent to bottled water, giving people something they’ve always been able to do and branding it to make it attractive. There is nothing that can be done with Twitter that can’t be done with email, and quite a bit that can’t be done with Twitter that CAN be done with email.
You can discover people with similar interests through email now. People you have never met or had any contact with.
If that’s a question, the answer is yes, at least to the same extent you can on Twitter. Mailing lists have been around for decades.
Check out her Facebook page too (17K fans) very modern majesty…! http://www.face....com/QueenRania
It is definitely not her Facebook page, judging by the comments. I hope that she would not be that conceited. When you start a fan page, you declare being the person or an authorized representative, which does not appear to be the case here.
I wonder if Elvis will ever be on twitter lol
and all that time, I thought I was the only Queen on twitter.
I’ve always been on TC’s side when people complain about over-excited Twitter coverage.
Please don’t prove me wrong.
Do you guys have copy editors anymore?
Those are the copy editors.
I met Queen Rania last year and the photo I took is my most popular photo on Flickr. She is the one person I have seen just shut down a room by walking in. Very impressive person.
what about arrington?
Sexy one?:)
AFAIK I know about Queen Rania, she is very much into humanitarian causes. She has got a huge fan base on the web (not sure how big) and works for the well being of her citizens a lot.
She is probably the most famous “Her Majesty” on the Internet
It’s interesting to see how down to earth these people are, from the media I always get the impression they’re aloof and would never engage in commoner activities, but twitter (+ youtube and a variety of other services) have proven this to be incorrect. It’s great for the service as well.
I just tried to follow QueenRania – and I got a message that the account has been suspended due to suspicious activity….
It works fine on my side. Tried following her and it worked.
Is it @QueenRania ?
BORRRRRINGGGGGG!!!!
What kind of Lunes do you think your readers are?
For Gods Sake, stop embarassing yourself and us.
I swear I will pick up my newspaper again soon if blogs like this continue.
I rather have a day old real news than hourly spam
Wow wish I could just be a Duke or an Earl of something.
Boring indeed
Ironic, isn’t it? The Queen uses social media to charm the masses while her husband locks up thousands of political dissidents who find nothing charming about his corrupt and authoritarian regime. I’m guessing that the Queen isn’t following this feed:
http://twitter.com/amnesty
Funny to see no one responding to this valid comment of yours Mercello. I wrote a post critical of both Robin’s ignorance of the matter as well as human rights abuses which the Queen is effectively diverting attention away from with her usage of social media for self-PR and utter propaganda, but after it was published it has later been censored.
Thanks, Orly. Given the extent of Jordan’s human rights abuses, I’m surprised that more people haven’t chimed in with similar concerns. I guess torture is okay, just as long as it’s not posted on YouTube.
Queen Rania is cool. She has been utilizing technology to open up and interact with the people in ways that we have not seen in the Middle East before. http://mohammad...-is-twittering/
I tried posting this comment a few times yesterday, it woudn’t work but I will give it atry again, I really do hope its helps this blog
Can the bloggers on this site please reveal their direct financial interests if any in twitter. So that the readers can differentiate between advertising blogs and others. I know that you think you maybe unbiased, but it woud be better if reader has the opportunity of deciding that. I also know that you are not obligated to do so, but it would help the readers to understand the colored perceptions of the bloggers and make for more educated readers and more informed news breakers to others and pointing to your article.
I am a reader of your blog, and I hate twitter and I hate it more everytime I read a blog here on it. It appears like spam on this blog, if there is so much news on it then maybe you can open a side blog on it, why corrupt this main blog. It is unbearable to read about it. I am not sure if voice of the customer matters for blog/news sites, you can sure try doing without it, but these were my two cents. Thanks
Happy to help! No one at TechCrunch has any direct financial interests in Twitter. That should cover your concerns on that level, there’s nothing more to say.
As for your comment on the blog being unbearable to read because of our Twitter coverage, there’s a simple, non-technical solution for it: stop reading posts with Twitter in the title. Guaranteed to save you from 99% of the posts we publish about Twitter or Twitter-related stuff.
You’re welcome!
@concerned – I agree with you… but you know what? I still consider TC a great source of info on IT. However, when I visit here, I make a point *NOT* to read anything that either Sarah Lacy and Robin Wauters write about and not much about Twitter…
So, what is left? Good articles by Arrington, Erick Schonfeld, MG Siegler, Jason Kincaid and very few others…
See, there’s another non-technical solution!
Robin, is there an European version of TMZ?
I am honestly surprised with the fair reply I got from you. After all, no matter how I said it, it would have appeared as criticism.
With perosnal blogging this has to be an issue, that people either love it or hate it. I can respect that, and my opinion should not be the guage to decide what you should be doing. It has to be a combination of you what you feel like writing about, what the blog is about, and the output is how much readership you have.
As such, I will take your advice and stop reading all twitter related articles here. As this would provide a more concrete measure of how well your current startegy is doing.
My problems with Twitter are the same as Jeff mentioned, if anyone is curious.
can i point out that you HAD to be reading Robin Wauters to be commenting here? And there’s a good reason NOT to get married…you’ll be held accountable for your spouse’s actions – and deemed contradictory for choosing to use the powers that be to make a difference in your world. LOL. Queen Rania is actually a very interesting character. As far as being bored by Twitter – why is that? It’s usage is changing daily. It’s like a new toy that anyone with a PC and a good connection can play with. At Oshyn, Inc (@Oshyn_Inc) we’ve connected with others interested in our domain – building relationships we might not have been able to and we’ve had business inquiries and increased traffic to our website. On my personal Twitter (@kimberlymccabe) I have discovered a myriad of people in marketing who are extremely informative. And then there are the comedians and fact sharers. All max 140 bits. That’s my kind of content aggregation!
@Kimberly
It’s called *hope* Kim… Like waddling through the mud looking for some gold nuggets, which in fairness, we could find on Robin’s articles probably every other month or so.
“… you HAD to be reading …” Of course, and your observation shows your shallow thinking, while occupied shamelessly plugging your company… and of course, Twitter.
Twitter is marginally useful for businesses’ PR+Marketing, but is mainly a monumental waste of time for millions of its users.
Jeff – Thank you very much for the compliments. That is very kind of you to take the time to offer a critique on your perception of my intentions or character.
Actually twitter can be an AMAZING marketing and PR tool. I guess as with most things – it depends on how you use it. I find it curious that people hate Twitter….yet they don’t need to participate! Further, many people find the usefulness in Twitter when the learn how to use APIs etc – to see/find the kind of content they are interested in. You can always use “Rules” in your settings to divert email with the world Twitter to the trash….
They blog about the internet, right now, the internet is twitter. Sure it sucks, but that’s the way it is.
Perez Hilton might contest that title…..
OMG this is awesome technology news. Better than the Sun
I was hoping Brian May of QUEEN had signed up!
if she’s the queen of twitter, does that make julia allison the princess?
World’s hottest QILF.
You mean TWILF.
“Tweep I’d like to follow.”
Robert, interesting. Her pictures are also the most viewed on our Flickr photo stream http://tr.im/ForumPics – Matthias
How cool is She? A queen, On Twitter, and checking out Matthey Mcconaughey! She’s just might be my Twitter Talk feature on The One Shot http://budurl.com/TheOneShot I bet she has some rockin shoes
I’m a fan of Her Majesty, not ony because she is the most beautiful currently living queen I know of but because she really gets involved. Now let’s see if she comes to FF.
She seems to be socially active, but I am going to say that she needs to get a new designer for her website because that website design really suck.
Twitter is becoming a real haven for stars and figures these days, which I never thought I would see.
What a lovely and pretty queen!
With all due respect to the Queen, this is not exactly news worthy of a technology blog.
Are you guys going to post on every famous person using this fad service?
Just post that today was a slow news day – so we don’t waste our time reading these worthless posts.
That is awesome, its cool to see people jumping on the twitter bandwagon.
It is nice to see one celebrity, says useful stuff other than,”oh I got so many followers today”. Followed ze Queen (and she uses Tweetdeck OMG!)
Palestinian hottie marries for money and title. God I admire her.
She has a good youtube channel as well
Great
I think it’s great.Just followed her
If you are a public figure, why not build your brand and tweet it up!
Pretty and sectual girl, i like her
Following,she is beautifull
Update.
Queen Rania is doing her first Twitter interview at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East at the Dead Sea. Vote or suggest questions to be put to Her Majesty: http://tr.im/QueenRania
I don’t know about you guys but Queen Rania is something else.
Don’t know about you guys but Queen Rania is the most admired Queen right now. She is doing a terrific job.
I’m really impressed that she’s using twibble and maybe she also ditches twitter and moves on to the free, opensource microblog thing called identi.ca/laconi.ca?