Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, has become the first member of the British royal family to open an official Twitter account.
Andrew, fourth in line to the throne, chose @TheDukeOfYork as his handle on the micro-blogging site, BBC reported.
His first tweet was "Welcome to my Twitter account - AY". If the tweets are signed AY, they would be written by Andrew himself.
The prince served for 22 years in the Royal Navy as a helicopter pilot.
Two golf clubs and two official royal family accounts -- @BritishMonarchy and @ClarenceHouse -- are among the organisations Andrew is already following on Twitter.
Within two hours of going online, the duke's account had more than 3,000 followers.