Time magazine has picked Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg as its annual Person of the Year, the figure it believes had the most influence on events in 2010.


The 26-year-old billionaire was the subject of a 2010 film, The Social Network, charting Facebook‘s rise.


Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange earlier won a Time readers‘ poll on 2010‘s most influential person.


The annual feature has been a fixture since the 1920s, with the winner appearing on the front cover of Time.


The Person of the Year (formerly Man of the Year) title is awarded by the magazine‘s editors to the figure deemed to have had the most influence on world events that year - not necessarily in a positive way, the British Broadcasting Corporation reports.


Hitler, Stalin and the Ayatollah Khomeini have all won in the past.


In recent years, the title has gone to less controversial figures. In 2009, United States Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke won it, while US President Barack Obama won it the year before.


At 26, Zuckerberg has put himself on the map not only as one of the world‘s youngest billionaires, but also as a prominent newcomer to the world of philanthropy.


Earlier this year, he pledged $100 million over five years to the Newark, New Jersey school system. Now, he‘s in the company of media titans Carl Icahn, 74, Barry Diller, 68, and others who have joined Giving Pledge, an effort led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett to commit the country‘s wealthiest people to step up their charitable donations.


Zuckerberg owns about a quarter of Facebook‘s shares.


Time‘s ”Person of the Year” is the person or thing that has most influenced the culture and the news during the past year for good or for ill.


What about Chilean miners? Tea Party?


The decision to name Zuckerberg Person of the Year followed weeks of debate and discussion among Time editors and staff members.


Time editors stress that being named Person of the Year is not an honour. In fact, their definition of the designation goes like this: “The person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse.”


The magazine’s No. 2 runner-up after Zuckerberg was the Tea Party, a loose affiliation of American citizens united by their dislike of big government.


No. 3: Julian Assange, whose WikiLeaks organization has shared reams of sensitive diplomatic cables with the world. Referring to a poll of Time readers as to who should have been chosen, Stengel told Lauer and Vieira: “Assange won our poll by a great margin — but of course, Lady Gaga was No. 2. We take all that into account.”


No. 4: Hamid Karzai, the elected leader of the volatile nation of Afghanistan.


No. 5: The Chilean miners, who were trapped half a mile underground for more than two months. Stengel told Lauer and Vieira that “we have photographs of every Chilean miner” in their issue.

http://www.punchontheweb.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201012160262312

Well deserved, IMO.

FB is a very good network. . . .great for college students, great for people who remembers people from previous bla bla. Most of my campus and organization events are anounced on FB, even my prof sends us stuff on FB. You can find class notes and study partners [from your class] on FB. Everything is on FB. It's great. Just that a lot of people abuse it. I.E Married men having 3 wives on FB. Well no matter what it is, it's in our human nature to abuse it.

Brilliant idea. But I think MySpace should have won something too, the owner started it all. [Not a MySpace user]. MySpace gave birth to FB.

GEJ and IBB are on the FB now.

supereagle:

GEJ and IBB are the [/b]FB now.

[b]On, you mean?
Because if you mean the former, that's a bold statement to make.

Thanks for pointing my attention to that . It was an oversight.

How can one man, have all this power? lol

Kanye West is a genius.