Finally, Bill Gates has a website
Posted by Daniel Francavilla | Posted in Design, Web 2.0 | Posted on 26-01-2010-05-2008
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The world’s richest man, Bill Gates, has finally launched a website – well, blog, I guess. It’s kind of its own unique thing.
When I was younger I would Google Bill Gates, to learn about his wealth, innovation and personal innitiatives. But the information was always so limited (other than news and a simple profile page on Microsoft.com). I thought it was so crazy that a guy who built up the computer industry and spent years developing for the Internet, didn’t even have his own domain name registered – I would go to BillGates.com and be so confused that nothing was there. Of all people, I thought, he should have a website. At that point I completely forgot about it and gave up.
Recently, Gates joined Twitter and re-joined Facebook. Within only 8 hours of him joining Twitter, he had 100,000 followers! Record-breaking.
Then, one day last week, I see this: Welcome to the Gates Notes:
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.
Gates finally decided to put his thoughts out there, online, with a bit more time.
I thought it would be interesting to share these conversations more widely with a website, in the hope of getting more people thinking and learning about the issues I think are interesting and important. So, welcome to the Gates Notes.
Based on the way some things are worded on the site, though, I’d say he had a dedicated team of staff putting everything together. Why wouldn’t you, when you have billions?
The website encompasses a varity of things, like his travels, conversations, questions, etc. Design-wise, there’s even colour and logo branded-sections:
And it’s quite nice, design-wise. There’s an interesting interface, in terms of the site’s navigation. It’s colour-coated and each section moves depending on what you mouse-over.
It will be interesting to see how well Mr. Gates keeps the site updated. Of course he’s a really busy guy. But it looks like they’ve put a ton of work into adding content for the launch, giving it the appearance having been active for years.
Here’s a quick video interview from CNET about his new online presence:
The Official Website of Bill Gates is found at www.thegatesnotes.com.
