Is there any reason to use twitter if you have no need for social networking? I completely understand people joining a trend like say ricky gervasis to promote his hosting and oprah to promote her show but I honestly don't see a point for most normal people.
I wonder how many are following him with the intention of trying to escalate their Microsoft tech support problems or just general bashing of Microsoft. I'll bet he learned how to block people early on.
I'm not sure if you're trying to bash Microsoft here or not, but I'm going to assume you were genuinely curious.
The reason that most people are following him (anecdotally anyway) is that he's a well known (the most well known?) and successful person in the tech space who has just joined. There isn't any reason why he can't turn off seeing "@ replies" from people he doesn't follow either - doing that will only show tweets from people you follow. Twitter's settings are pretty configurable for users who have tons of followers.
Ah, but what's interesting though is that his @reply counts just as much as yours or mine. To even notice Bill's reply, they'd have to sift through all the @replies that they get every day.
I assume (based on his first few tweets) that he'll be using it to promote his foundation primarily. I selfishly wish that he would use it less for self promotion and more for just odd ideas/thoughts, I think it would be really interesting to get into his mind occasionally.
He's "Verified by Twitter" - I think that has something to do with it.
If the original owner pretended to be Bill Gates (even as a joke, or as an imposter), they could legally take it away without much hassle. However, if it was just the URI stub for someone else tweeting as their real selves: good question!
The rapid growth in his follower numbers is certainly impressive, but I'm more curious about who he chooses to follow. Looking through the list, it was mostly foundations. What struck me as odd was that he followed Ashton Kutcher and Ashley Tisdale. We all have our reasons for choosing who we want to read/hear, I would love to know why he lent his mindshare to those two.
There was some speculation internally on this too (I work at MSFT). One theory is that Ashley Tisdale is involved in charity work too and Bill might know her personally. No idea as to how true that is though :)
Kutcher has 4.5 mil twitter followers, Tisdale has 2.5 mil, it was probably a good way to end up in the stream of the top twitter celebrities to get that initial bump
38 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 72.8 ms ] threadI agree with the poster who recently likened Twitter to Mullets. We'll look back thoroughly embarrassed.
All twitter needs is a song like 'Convoy': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_T0MONtP0w
Keep dreaming, axod. Twitter is here to stay. You'll look back on your twitterlessness and be thoroughly embarassed. :-)
I wonder how many are following him with the intention of trying to escalate their Microsoft tech support problems or just general bashing of Microsoft. I'll bet he learned how to block people early on.
The reason that most people are following him (anecdotally anyway) is that he's a well known (the most well known?) and successful person in the tech space who has just joined. There isn't any reason why he can't turn off seeing "@ replies" from people he doesn't follow either - doing that will only show tweets from people you follow. Twitter's settings are pretty configurable for users who have tons of followers.
I assume (based on his first few tweets) that he'll be using it to promote his foundation primarily. I selfishly wish that he would use it less for self promotion and more for just odd ideas/thoughts, I think it would be really interesting to get into his mind occasionally.
If the original owner pretended to be Bill Gates (even as a joke, or as an imposter), they could legally take it away without much hassle. However, if it was just the URI stub for someone else tweeting as their real selves: good question!
actually he just tweeted about a blog he started documenting what he's learned through his foundation work:
http://www.thegatesnotes.com/
Or Bill could secretly love TMZ shrugs It's not necessarily incompatible with the rest of his life, albeit unexpected.