It appears as if Bill Gates is not much of a techno “geek” after all. Of course it may be that he favors the technology behind the various online platforms, software packages and applications, but that he does not care to interact with them. As far as Facebook is concerned, Mr. Gates delivered a notice essentially saying that his account was overpowering and that the social networking portal had “performed an illegal operation and should be shut down.” Of course, this is Microsoft-speak and there is nothing illegal about Facebook’s popularity, rather that it was just too annoying for the technology magnate.
During a recent visit to India, Gates admitted that he could not deal with the fact that when he signed on to check his account, he would see that he had received “10,000” requests from people to be his friend. What especially irked him, apparently, was that he found the procedure of actually checking out the identity of these people to be very cumbersome.
Those of us who have Facebook accounts, yet may not be as popular as Mr. Gates, can attest to the fact that the site can be a little challenging at times, yet no one can challenge its position of dominance within its market niche.
Other leading celebrities, including Martha Stewart, have come out against Facebook, and in Stewart’s case have endorsed Twitter as an alternative, where she is one of the top five most active participants.
Facebook is not a “set it and forget it” style of social interaction. For example, you do not just compose your bio and resume, as you might do at LinkedIn, rather Facebook needs to be updated and maintained on a regular basis.
While the majority of Facebook members feel that they attract real friends, or friends of their friends, the world of the celebrity is a very different one indeed. As we can see in the case of Mr. Gates, Facebook represents an opportunity for virtual autograph hunters, name droppers and rabid fans to get as close as they possibly can to their superstar.
Do you think Bill Gates is a really popular guy or do his “friends” just want to “touch” a piece of his success?
Matthew Toren
“Small Business, Big Vision provides a framework for you to unleash your driven and relentless passion to achieve unprecedented growth.”
Mr. Bill is right :) There should be a fast to find out who is our friend, who is our freind of our freind and who just got us through the search :) Facbook is good but needs improvement.
I for one do not like Facebook. They seem to be able to change their policy on privacy as and when they like. I always wonder if my data is still lurking somewhere in their server even long after I deleted my account with them.
I think twitter is a much better platform for celebrities. I reckon they’d rather have ‘followers’ to ‘friends’ :)
May be Bill Gates wants to acquire Facebook under the umbrella of Microsoft :)