As some of you may have seen in the news, the His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI (‘the Pope’) opened a Twitter account this week, with the handle @pontifex. So far so good news.

But according to a report in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, one mobile marketing firm, Pontiflex (Twitter handle, @pontiflex) has seen an almost miraculous increase in its Twitter following, after attracting scores of new followers, who were looking, presumably, for salvation, but found instead: “a new form of mobile advertising called signup ads”. That’s according to the Pontiflex website.

Pontiflex did at least have the good grace to Tweet on Monday: “We are deeply humbled by the surge of new followers today. But if youre looking for tweets from the Pope please follow @pontifex”.

In any event, despite the erroneous followers it has signed up this week, the mobile marketing firm still has some catching up to do. The company is currently on 1,393 followers, after posting 1,093 Tweets since it opened its account. The Pope meanwhile, is on 465,862, despite having yet to Tweet…