Now it appears that Bill Gates joined Twitter with calculated intentions. After passing 100,000 followers in eight hours (now he has nearly 250,000 fans), the Microsoft visionary used his now-popular account to announce a new web project: The Gates Notes.


The new website offers a collection of Gates-related information with blog-like sections documenting everything from his travels to what he’s reading and thinking about. There’s even a “Curious Classroom” section serving to house Gates’s responses to students, and an “Infrequently Asked Questions” page to address reader questions.

So what’s the point of the site? On your first visit, you’re greeted with a letter from Gates explaining that he regularly takes notes about his work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He’s decided to share those notes online “in the hope of getting more people thinking and learning about the issues I think are interesting and important.”

At launch, the site is already packed with notes, and we’re impressed and overwhelmed by the collection of content. Now that Gates has captured the attention of more than 200,000 Twitter() users, we expect to see him use the platform to share fresh content with his followers and quickly gain an audience for this new online project.