Bill Gates to get LinkedIn

Just a short while after abandoning Facebook due to being overwhelmed with friend requests, Bill Gates plans to experiment on rival service LinkedIn.

On Thursday, the Microsoft Chairman will post a question related to "how technology can be better utilized for charitable causes" to LinkedIn's entire 19 million members. I'm interested to see whether Gates finds LinkedIn scales to someone of his stature any better than Facebook.

The move comes as part of a set of announcements that LinkedIn plans to make on Thursday. A pitch from LinkedIn noted the company will have a revamped home page to show off as well as a "notable advertising announcement." They declined to say whether said announcement is with Microsoft, however.

Microsoft provides ad-serving to Facebook thanks to a sizeable investment in Facebook, while Google has an exclusive and pricey deal with MySpace. Google recently noted challenges in getting social networking deals to pay off.

[Penguinisto]

I might just attend that one...

...and I'll only ask two questions:<br /><br />"Mr. Gates, do you believe the use of contracts in exchange for charity to be a moral act?"<br /><br />"Also, how can a charity retain a tax-exempt status when said charity refuses to grant donations unless specific recipients also purchase from the corporation that the foundation owner built?"<br /><br />/P

[Hernys]

I can answer those for you

In the first case, yes, it is a moral act. As long as the net result is in the advantage of the destinataries of the award, the contract conditions may subtract from the net result, but not affect the direction of the benefit.<br /><br />Regarding the second point, no, that would be bad.<br />But I would be interested in knowing a single case of any of those two incidents related to the Gates Foundation. I follow closely the actions of this foundation (and of Gates charitable efforts) and have never seen it conditioning any donations to doing business with Microsoft. <br />Also, just do the math: if Gates donated $2 to charity and demanded that $1 are bought from Microsoft, he's not a great businessman. If he donates $1 and demands $2 in business, he's unlikely to succeed. And he's certainly not stupid.<br />If you just made that up, you are a very sick person. Go see a doctor, you have a fixation with Gates.

[Bobgarrett]

Billy Billy Billy

Don't you have better things to do with your time?