That’s what I asked myself when I saw that not only has William H. Gates III gotten himself outfitted with a Twitter account, a Facebook account, and a website, he states that he was sure that people would be interested in keeping up with what he was doing.
For me, I’d rather he had gotten himself a reddit account, and done an Ask Me Anything. I’m sure it would have been endlessly more entertaining.
The guys at ComputerWorld have certainly decided that it was top-shelf news –
As if joining Twitter and rejoining Facebook in the same week weren’t enough, Bill Gates has now launched a Web site on which he can share his thoughts.
Sure, most people can share their thoughts and opinions using Facebook and Twitter. But most people aren’t the former chairman of Microsoft Corp. and a world-renowned philanthropist.
So to better let people know what’s going on in his world, Gates launched a site today called the Gates Notes.
“Since leaving my full-time job at Microsoft to dedicate more time to our foundation, a lot of people have asked me what I’m working on,” wrote Gates as a welcome message on his new site. “It often feels like I’m back in school, as I spend a lot of my time learning about issues I’m passionate about. I’m fortunate because the people I’m working with and learning from are true experts in their fields. I take a lot of notes, and often share them and my own thoughts on the subject with others through email, so I can learn from them and expand the conversation.
“I thought it would be interesting to share these conversations more widely with a Website, in the hope of getting more people thinking and learning about the issues I think are interesting and important,” he added.
So far, the site has information about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, epidemic preparedness, relief for Haiti and climate change.
It’s been a busy week for Gates.
Yesterday, he joined Twitter, sending out his first tweet. Since that first tweet on Tuesday afternoon, Gates has twittered six more times, and he quickly amassed a following of more than 236,000 people. He also made it onto more than 67,000 Twitter lists.
A little after 3 p.m. EDT today he Twittered about his new Web site. “My new Website is live check out www.thegatesnotes.com. Excited to share more about what I’m learning, hope you like it!”
And after quitting Facebook last summer and publicly saying that being on the social networking site was more trouble than it was worth, he made a return on Tuesday. To avoid being crushed with friend requests this time around, Gates has opted to let people become “fans” of his page instead.
Not sure about this, because anyone who wants to know about what the man does can pick up an article about him, or a news blurb on the television (he has been on Charlie Rose a couple of times in the last year).
As I said, I (and I don’t think I am alone here) would much rather have some answers to what happened at his last “job”.
Why was it so necessary to have a browser, though it was third rate at best?
Why is it that, since you have been known to be a perfectionist, and a workaholic, the same mistakes were made over and over with different iterations of Windows?
I think that would be a good start to a wonderful beginning of an information site.
This is not to say what he is doing now is not important, but when looking for information about Bono’s philanthropic endeavors, one doesn’t usually look on the sports page.
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