Hugo Chavez is starting to use Twitter to counter his opponents online, forcing a president who often talks for hours to sum up each thought in 140 characters or less.

Chavez urged Venezuelans to watch his newly created account - chavezcandanga - after midnight Tuesday, saying "at that point is when I let loose."

His first tweet in Spanish popped up at 14 minutes after midnight: "Hey how's it going? I appeared like I said I would: at midnight. I'm off to Brazil. And very happy to work for Venezuela. We will be victorious!!"

By late Tuesday, the socialist leader had more than 18,000 followers before posting a single tweet, and that increased to more than 23,000 early Wednesday.