Bill Gates embraces Web 2.0

ON THE ROAD: Bill Gates in India, in a photo posted on his Facebook page.

Microsoft founder turned full-time philanthropist, Bill Gates, has launched a fresh assault on cyberspace with a Twitter account, new Facebook page and personal website dubbed "The Gates Notes".

But Gates, who stepped down from day-to-day Microsoft duties in 2008 to focus full-time on his charity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has already been criticised for being late to the web 2.0 party and ignoring new technologies such as a comment system and RSS feeds.

Within two days, Gates has already attracted over 250,000 Twitter followers and 60,000 Facebook fans.

He returns to Facebook after quitting the site last year, saying he was getting too many friend requests and had trouble determining who were his friends and who were strangers.

"It was just way too much trouble so I gave it up," he told a business forum in India.

In true nerd fashion, Gates commenced his Twitter postings with the popular programmer's refrain, "hello world". But he is already networking with celebrities, posting thank you notes to Ashton Kutcher and Hollywood TV personality Ryan Seacrest.

Gates only follows 40 people on Twitter, including various philanthropic and social organisations, journalists, Barack Obama and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

On his new website, The Gates Notes, the billionaire has sections devoted to "what i'm thinking about", "what i'm learning", "my travels", "curious classroom" and "conversations".

This is complemented by his Facebook profile, where Gates has already published photos of his travels to India and Africa.

Topics he has covered on Gates Notes include the Haiti crisis, the H1 N1 flu virus, climate change, global health programs, and global hunger.

He has published a review of the book "Super Freakonomics", a transcript of a Q&A session with junior high school students in the Mexican state of Sonora and video clips of various discussions he has had with "contemporary problem solvers" such as Warren Buffett.

Gates even gives his tips on where to get "unbiased news" and shares his thoughts on recent AIDS research and the prospect of developing an AIDS vaccine.

"Since leaving my fulltime job at Microsoft to dedicate more time to our foundation, a lot of people have asked me what I'm working on. It often feels like I'm back in school, as I spend a lot of my time learning about issues I'm passionate about," he writes in an introductory note.

"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."

He said he launched into cyberspace to share these conversations more widely in the hope of getting more people to think and learn about important issues.

But geeks, who are used to reading websites through RSS feed programs such as Google Reader, criticised gates for failing to switch on an RSS stream. The site also lacks the ability for users to write comments.

"I realize this isn't earth shattering but after obviously putting out the effort to make himself accessible it is really strange that one of the cornerstones of social media isn't available on his blog," wrote The Inquisitr blog.

- © Fairfax NZ News