Bill Gates becomes overnight Twitter sensation

Bill Gates' Twitter page

It's a case of better late than never for Microsoft chairman and founder Bill Gates who has only just gotten round to signing up for micro-blogging phenomenon Twitter.

The Microsoft chairman and founder - or his representatives - created his first tweet yesterday and has managed to amass a large following overnight. Indeed, as of this morning he was on more than 150,000 followers and at the time of publication his follower count stood at 187,311. He's chosen to follow just 40 people, however.

His first tweet was fairly vanilla: "Hello World." Hard at work on my foundation letter - publishing on 1/25." He later thanked Ashton Kutcher - a seasoned Twitter user - for welcoming him to the fold.

"Thanks to you and all the other people who have welcomed me," he said. "I've got a lot to learn about Twitter but look forward to sharing more."

Click here for our beginner's guide to Twitter for business

Maggie Holland

Maggie has been a journalist since 1999, starting her career as an editorial assistant on then-weekly magazine Computing, before working her way up to senior reporter level. In 2006, just weeks before ITPro was launched, Maggie joined Dennis Publishing as a reporter. Having worked her way up to editor of ITPro, she was appointed group editor of CloudPro and ITPro in April 2012. She became the editorial director and took responsibility for ChannelPro, in 2016.

Her areas of particular interest, aside from cloud, include management and C-level issues, the business value of technology, green and environmental issues and careers to name but a few.