Bill Gates Defends Google, Then Pans It

Bill Gates dropped by The New York Times on Monday to discuss his full-time job as head of the Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropy, especially its work in global health and development. Mr. Gates was on his way to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he is expected to announce an expansion of the foundation’s vaccine programs in poor nations. But Mr. Gates is still the chairman and largest shareholder of Microsoft. And when asked, Mr. Gates had a few observations on the Internet search efforts of Microsoft and Google that were, by turns, acute, sardonic and tart.

Read More: NYTimes

P&G Embraces Facebook as a Big Part of Their Marketing Plan

Procter & Gamble Co. loves Facebook after all, and besides encouraging brands to develop a presence there, the world’s biggest marketer has opened an office in Silicon Valley to help develop social-networking systems and digital-marketing capabilities with the website. Those messages came in a meeting last week between P&G executives and venture capitalists, recounted by David Hornik on VentureBlog in a post that quickly picked up currency over the weekend on, of all places, Twitter. “P&G’s explicit goal for 2010 is to assure that each of its brands has a meaningful presence on Facebook, and they are willing to pay dearly for that,” Mr. Hornik wrote. “And while P&G’s thought leaders expressed some skepticism about the efficacy of Facebook’s ‘engagement ads,’ they certainly view Facebook as a must-have for digital advertising and brand building. They didn’t quantify what they are paying for that exposure, but it is quite clear that the numbers are very big.”

Read More: AdAge

Will Foursquare Be The Twitter of 2010?

Foursquare is social network billed as part social city guide, part friend finder, and part nightlife game. The NYC-based startup is being hailed as the next-generation social network, calling on gregarious technophiles to broadcast their locations via geo-aware mobile devices. What sets Foursquare apart from many competitors in the “local social” space is its undeniably sticky platform. Users are awarded points for their check-ins, and they scramble to earn badges and vie for bragging rights as the most frequent visitor of popular places. In short, Foursquare is fun. Many observers are quick to draw parallels between Foursquare and Twitter. Both services made their public debuts at South by Southwest (during different years), where both were hailed as breakout hits. One of the reasons behind Foursquare’s current momentum can be found in the type of user it has continued to attract: early adopters and social media mavens — vocal segments that others look to for trends in the space.

Read More: iMediaConnection