Malcolm Turnbull joins Twitter community

Federal Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has joined the ranks of celebrities and influential tech leaders in getting a Twitter account -- and the results are surprisingly mundane.

Twitter is a social networking site with a focus on microblogging -- short posts of less than 140 characters, which describe the user's actions and thoughts.

"TurnbullMalcolm" had a modest 274 followers by late Wednesday evening. His followers included Rove Online, the Twitter account for Rove McManus' television show.

Turnbull's first posts on Twitter have been relatively conservative. Turnbull has been "in Parliament", "reading the morning papers" and "getting ready for Question Time".

But Turnbull was beaten to Twitter by an imitator, who goes by the name "" target="_blank">malcolmturnbull". For the past few weeks, "malcolmturnbull" has been posting a parody of the Liberal leader.

"I totally am in touch with the people; like I asked my cleaner yesterday if she could avoid touching the Ferrari again," said the imitator.

"Malcolmturnbull" has also been arguing with "brendan_nelson", whom he refers to as "Dr Boring".

The imitator, while perhaps more entertaining, has just 78 followers.