Business - Written by Mike Dover on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 16:26 - 4 Comments
I think this is worse than your boss not returning your emails
After his rather large investment in Facebook, Bill Gates has abandoned his account.
Reported in the Wall St. Journal today, Gates didn’t delete his account (word is, that is actually impossible), but he is stopped using it.
According to the article:
His problem is excessive celebrity. After Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook last year, Gates spent 30 minutes a day on the social-networking site, the Sun reports. “But he signed off after getting more than 8,000 friend requests a day, and spotted weird fan sites about him,” says the Sun, citing an unnamed colleague. The article linked above says he deleted the account. A Microsoft spokesperson tells us that Gates hasn’t deleted it, but that he has stopped using it because he was inundated with friend requests.
4 Comments
Bob Boyce
Danny Williamson
An interesting point. Although it’s unrealistic to expect someone like Mr. Gates to spend “hours and hours” on facebook, using social media has the potential to provide some unfiltered access to information on the ground for those who don’t ordinarily have a direct pipeline to/from consumers.
Denis
I think we might have stumbled onto the litmus test for Facebook’s sustainability and business potential. If the site can be developed to a point that EVEN Bill Gates can effectively use it, they’ll be onto something seriously good…
Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Military not a Facebook fan
[...] on Facebook. It’s sort of like tripping the prom queen. So don’t revisit posts like this, this, this, this, and [...]
Coming soon in paperback! Help rename the paperback version of Macrowikinomics and win a one-hour webinar for you and your colleagues with Don Tapscott. Ends 5:00pm ET, August 31. Learn more.
Business - Oct 5, 2010 12:00 - 0 Comments
DRM and us
More In Business
- Facebook, Facebook, Facebook
- Survey: How are you using Facebook, Twitter, smart phones, and other technology platforms?
- Will Facebook be your CRM provider?
- Wiki Banking
- The importance of being competent
Entertainment - Aug 3, 2010 13:14 - 2 Comments
Want to see the future? Look to the games
More In Entertainment
- Lessons in collaboration from B.B. King’s
- CL!CK – LEGO’s fun social product development platform
- Peer Pressure 2.0: Farmville
- Online gaming more than just fun
- The NFL – The most protective league, attempting to control the uncontrollable
Society - Aug 6, 2010 8:19 - 4 Comments
The Empire strikes a light
More In Society
- Balance: customer receptivity vs. customer revulsion
- The Net Gen: Too plugged-in for parenting?
- Are you addicted to social media?
- The privacy discussion we need to have
- “The Data-Driven Life”: Who’s not interested in discovery?
Mike–Do you really expect Bill Gates–or anyone else–to spend hours and hours a day responding to strangers’ requests to make them “friends”? And then to read their comments? Get real! He–and all of us–have work to do.