Breaking news: Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, philanthropist and all-round king of geeks has done what half the rest of the world has already done, and joined Twitter.
The man who invented the system that lets the glowing rectangle in front of your eyes function the way it does (unless, you know, you’re on a Mac… or a mobile) has finally entered the microblogging community under the name @BillGates, silencing any pretenders with his first tweet “Hello world” – the standard initial programmer input when learning a new language.
– Top tech people to follow on Twitter
Gates, who stepped down from Microsoft last year to continue dispensing his prolific charity work, says that he intends to use the site to share “cool things I’m learning through my foundation work and other interests.” His account mustered 150,000 followers within 13 hours, and has steadied to around 1,000 new followers per minute. Similar numbers to the @T3dotcom feed, then.
Who’s he following, we hear you ask? 40 accounts, including a host of news feeds, some Microsoft bods, Queen Rania of Jordan and, erm… Ashley Tisdale.
It remains to be seen if he’ll overtake Oprah Winfrey in terms of popularity, but if you ask us his arrival on the social networking site is surprisingly late. It’s a bit like the inventor of sliced bread discovering that toasting it and covering it in jam tastes nice, two years after everyone else.
Link: Via BBC News
