Gates backs blogs for businesses

Bill Gates, as in the case of coming late to browsers, is coming late to blogging. However, I have no doubt all the MS clout will now be used toward cornering the market on blogging, as it did on browsing.

Frankly, every time I open my IE browser and it takes me to MS, I am infuriated. What Bill does not yet understand is that people have great loyalty to companies that let them CHOOSE -- whether it is the browser they use, the blogging company they choose or the amount of data people are willing for MS to mine. I am especially infuriated by the fact that as soon as I go offline, MS Internet Explorer and MS Messenger try to access the internet with their data mining report to -- why, none other than Bill's Microsoft. Bill Gates could build MS loyalty with some of us by leaving us alone. A revolutionary idea to Microsoft? It is rather akin to dealing with our Liberal government. Coercion they understand; choice is a bit more problematic.

I want a government that is willing to force this behemoth to cease and desist with the datamining. And do the same with the rest. Let us choose. I want choice in my telephone company, in my ISP, in my life. Get the CRTC out of Canadians' life; get the CBC off the taxpayer tit. There is more but you get the idea. Now, on to Bill, MS oracle.

Gates backs blogs for businesses May 21, 04

Blogs are good for business, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has said.

In a speech to an audience of chief executives, Mr Gates said the regularly updated journals, or blogs, could be a good way for firms to tell customers, staff and partners what they are doing.

He said blogs had advantages over other, older ways of communicating such as e-mail and websites.

More than 700 Microsoft employees are already using blogs to keep people up to date with their projects.

[. . . . ] Websites were a problem too, he added, because they demand that people visit them regularly to find out if anything has changed and require regular updating to avoid going stale.

These problems could be solved, said Mr Gates, by using blogs and Real Simple Syndication (RSS), that lets people know when a favourite journal is updated.

"What blogging and these notifications are about is that you make it very easy to communicate," he said.