Jobs vs. Gates, a grammatical analysis

Most people compare Bill Gates' keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show and Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo address by analyzing the relative strength of the products announced.

That's all fine and dandy, but what about looking at the words themselves? That's exactly what the ever-resourceful Todd Bishop at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has done. In a blog posting Tuesday, Bishop includes a tag cloud showing the most frequently used words by each, as well as an analysis of the rate of big words used by each.

In terms of which words came up the most, a tag cloud shows words such as "digital," "device," "great," "phone," and "Windows" atop Gates' list, while Jobs most frequently used "great," "iPod," "iPhone," "Mac," and "MacBook."

So both execs think their own products are great. No surprise there.

Gates' speech scored a 9.37 on the Gunning-Fog index, a measure of the number of years of education required to read a particular text. Jobs' address, meanwhile, clocked in at 6.9. Of the words used by Gates, 5.2 were classified as "hard words," while only about 3 percent of Jobs words were given that distinction.

It's up to you whether you think big words are better. I'll stay out of that one, but it's a fun read. Check it out.

[lmasanti]

Hard for nothing...

Many times those who has nothing to say use hard and difficult
words to seem intelligents!

[Lee in San Diego]

Two different

They are two different types of personalities, and both are
successes.

[catch23]

'many times'

you talk to your audience.
Might tell you a lot about the people listening.

[Spartan_458]

And I can tell...

..that you are neither.

[johnxtampa]

So the Mac is for third graders...

Makes perfect sense!

[AJ Pants]

haha

love to see you in front of one. you'd be totally lost.

[s1kb0y]

Even When Talking Jobs Is More Accessible to the Masses.

That only shows that even in speeches Jobs has a wider reach than Gates. Jobs philosophy has a wider appeal.

[johnedlt]

Somewhat OT but still there...

How many time has Gates retired from the Microsoft? what's with
the keynote?

The big difference is not so much in the delivery but what was
delivered. Anyone you know who remembers what gates said? Oh I
know Molly Wood does.

[fred dunn]

Jobs next killer product........iPoop.....

Because he doesn't think his stinks.
Steve Jobs is an ego-centric snob.
At least Bill Gates is putting money back into the world through his foundations. If Warren Buffet thinks Gates Foundation is sound then that is good enough for me.