Microsoft SAS 2007 --Bill Gates (raw notes)

The Reception on Monday was great. 18 piece jazz ensemble, the drinks did flow, the food was great and conversation was great. Now on to the first session where Bill Gates himself will be speaking. Below are my raw notes from the session. There are a number of issues discussed that I would like to dive deeper into but for now here are the notes.


How can inspiration change the world?


Joanne Bradford and Bill Gates



  • Joanne gives a little opening anecdote about how she stays connected with her family with Microsoft products

  • There was an attempt to utilize the interactive tool at the event today and it did not work J

  • “A guy who I will introduce in a few minutes, Bill Gates”

  • “I know I can I care” message

  • CEO of Home Depot wrote an apology to consumers on an msn message board

  • First party audience through MSN


Bill Gates



  • Revolutionizing the way people consume media and create media

  • Innovating in the age of engagement

  • How software advances will change that faster than before…



    • Chips.. exponential improvement



  • Ultra Wide Band technology

  • Digitization of the economy

  • It is not just about the screen based information, it is about the way we connect with all the marketplaces in the world

  • Directory Assistance and search become the same entity

  • The industry as a whole is spending a record amount on R and D

  • Touched upon the 3D element and the fact that we are starting to see products that can render these types of graphics and experiences

  • Tools for 3D interaction

  • Navigational environment type for experiencing the web

  • (Gates references the iPod instead of the Zune J )

  • Getting to a point where total integration makes sense

  • Far more integration in the future

  • Pervasive connectivity

  • There is not an industry that this is not changing in a dramatic way

  • It is not just advertising, it is not just media

  • Customer Driven Interaction



    • Excite>attract>engage>>



  • As we move to be user centric any time that you prove that it is you, it will connect to the internet and bring that down onto the device

  • In the future there will be no thinking about how information will be transferred from device to device, it will just happen

  • Speak about the straightforward nature of what Jenkins calls the “knowledge community”

  • There is a great simplification that comes after specialized sites look towards greater integration through advanced forms of RSS

  • The decline of print advertising

  • The only sure winner with the internet is the consumer themselves

  • Easy navigation of digital memories

  • “Memories will be well organized”

  • Ads can be in new and richer formats, the only drawbacks are the things associate with the device itself

  • Talks about Channel 9 (did not mention Scoble)

  • TV- “a subject that I think about a lot”

  • Changing TV to a targeted medium

  • The internet is now cheap that the idea of every house in American watching a different video feed is a reality

  • Customized channels

  • Interactive channels

  • A dramatic change in TV.

  • “Broadcast TV will not be competitive”

  • “One of the ways that we are learning about the future of TV is Xbox live”

  • Gaming like environments where you can chat while you watch TV

  • Turning the xbox into the worlds greatest set top box

  • Ed Gracyk- heads up the IPTV group

  • A connected TV experience. Social Connectivity

  • Displays microsofts iptv product

  • Integrated search

  • Xbox- How Social is coming into the TV experience

  • Disrupting advertising


  • Interactivity and New Formats—Silverlight

    • Cross browser/platform plugin

    • Content Partnerships

    • Rich Vector Grpahics—Casual Gaming

    • Silverlight TV Scaleable Video

    • Immersive experience that can extend the experience of video

    • The Socialization of TV with chat, video sharing etc.

    • Making the ads part of the experience itself

    • i.e. Advertising overlay

    • What can we do with search advertising in new ways?

    • C Dragon- Embedded imagery, audio, video etc. into search advertising



  • “The Live Era”

  • Providing Services across the internet

  • The importance of voice screen interaction—especially for the local market

  • We finally have the basis to draw education into technology

  • When people go to the internet they have a task in mind

  • The idea that through the magic of software we can capture that at the task level

  • Because we can learn so much about users, I think that we can move away from the way we think about this (advertising) today…

  • Question about Virtual Worlds—



    • Virtual Earth

    • We want to take the idea of the real world and bring it into the 3D virtual space and make that mainstream



  • Gates on Philanthropy

  • “I think we are seeing a higher level of generosity”

  • Using the internet to give people a way to  know that what they are giving is actually making a difference

  • It is important the we get the message back to people in order to continue the cycle


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