Will the real Bill Gates please Tweet? Microsoft's co-founder has joined the ranks of microbloggers.
Gates' first tweet as @billgates: "'Hello World.' Hard at work on my foundation letter -
publishing on 1/25." His last before retiring for the night: "@aplusk thanks to you and all the other people who have welcomed me. I've got a lot to learn about Twitter but look forward to sharing
more." Gates racked up 107,361 followers within the first 8 hours.
Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder, welcomed Gates in a late afternoon tweet. Ashton Kutcher became one of the first to welcome
Gates to Twitter. Thousands of people followed with well wishes with tweets streaming in a variety of languages from across the world.
Gates also rejoined social Facebook. He resigned from the
social networking site about six months ago, after becoming inundated with thousands of friend requests, according to reports.
Gates stepped down as Microsoft chief executive in mid-2008 to
spend his time working with the Bill and Melinda gates foundation, an effort devoted to better health and education. His Facebook page reflects his philanthropic efforts and admiration for
technology.