Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is TIME's "Person of the Year."
Today TIME Magazine said that it had chosen Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg as its "2010 Person of the Year." At 26, he's the youngest influential person to be chosen by TIME since the magazine picked 25-year-old Charles Lindbergh back in 1927.
"Being named as TIME Person of the Year is a real honor and recognition of how our little team is building something that hundreds of millions of people want to use to make the world more open and connected," Zuckerberg said on his Facebook page. "I'm happy to be a part of that."
Typically TIME chooses its "Person of the Year" based on a person or thing that has heavily influenced the news and our culture during the past year, whether it's a positive affect or a negative one. In 2010 Zuckerberg remained in the spotlight in regards to Facebook's overall maturity. However he also pledged $100 million over five years to the Newark, N.J. School system while also becoming a member of Giving Pledge, a group led my Microsoft founder Bill Gates that pushes America's wealthiest to "step up" their charitable donations.
According to TIME, Zuckerberg was chosen because he is connecting more than half a billion people and mapping social relations among them. He has also created a new system of exchanging information. However, ultimately, he changed how we all live our lives. TIME's 10-page spread explains this in great detail, spanning seven years of the Facebook founder's life.
"Only someone like Zuckerberg, someone as brilliant and blinkered and self-confident and single-minded and social as he is, could have built [Facebook]," TIME said. "The Zuckerberg who built Facebook won't be the same person as the Zuckerberg who runs it. He'll be getting older, traveling, maybe getting married, having kids, and as his life outside Facebook gets more complicated, maybe Facebook, the world he built in his own image, will get more complicated too."
TIME's runners-up for "Person of the Year" includes The Tea Party, Hamid Karzai, Julian Assange and the Chilean Miners. TIME's "2010 People Who Mattered" includes Lady Gaga, Steve Jobs, Justin Bieber, The Glee Cast, Pope Benedict, The Unemployed American and many, many more. Larry "Pants on the Ground" Platt even earned a place on TIME's "2010 15 Minutes of Fame" list.
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My first reaction was something to the effect of, "Well, f***. Let's give the jerk a Nobel Prize and get it over with." But, after thinking it through, I do have to admit that he has completely revolutionized the way people use the internet. Maybe not single-handedly, as he would like us to believe, but I guess he is rather influential. But he is still a complete jerk. Jerk face.
People were treating MySpace like they're treating Facebook right now just a few years ago, now MySpace has to attach themselves to Facebook just to stay afloat.
He's the person of this year, let's see where he is in a few years.
I don't believe myspace was ever as popular as facebook is now..but I do believe its a fad just like all other social tools are and won't last for eternity. He got lucky and built the perfect social networking tool for our decade, it happens. He used his luck well though, so I give him props for some of the things that he has done. We'd like to think he didn't deserve the reward, but he most obviously did.
good for him. donating his money i think was a very nice move, whether it was a public stunt or not
i'll be impressed if facebook is around in 10 years
I can't belive this, he is a tool!!! So he turn a bunch of people into mindless social zombies, the only thing good he's done is donate money to try and make up for the bad of Facebook.
Whatever happened to people's choice ? Julian Assange got 382,000 votes and this dude got what...20000 votes ?
And he's not doing something half as noble as Assange, is he ?
Oh TIME, how low have you gone? How much cash did you receive to put Zuckerberg as your POTY? Someone who's not even relevant to the running of the world...
First it was TV's now Facebook, were does it end with people like you melvis.
I don't care for Facebook, and it certainly wasn't the first of its kind, but I still have to give Zuckerberg some credit. Whatever it was that he did differently for Facebook than was done for previous social networks, it worked, and it has reached the general public in a way that few other technologies have.
Furthermore, I don't know of anything particularly immoral or unethical that he has done with his position, and he has donated and pledged quite a bit more of his money to charity and schools than most people of similar wealth.
There are definitely many others who are deserving of this title, but I see no issue with Zuckerberg winning it for this year.
lol. Sounds like times watched the social network too much... The guy is not as smart as he is portrayed in that movie.
Are they planning on releasing a Facebook POTY Edition with all the extras and mods?
not smart? tool? jerk?
where do you people get off??
Number One: you don't know the guy so you cannot make such judgements.
Number Two: your attitudes smack of jealousy
he saw an opportunity and took it - you would have done the same.
Some people make me sick.
So let me get this straight, Zuckerberg is POTY because he's famous? Why not just make Paris Hilton or the Kardashians POTY? I mean hell thats all our society has come down to these days, famous for being famous. There is really nothing interesting about Mark, and he has really done nothing unique or influential for the world. People login to facebook to write half sentence blurbs about how drunk they are or whaver stupid fleeting thought is passing through their heads at that moment. It's narcissism for lazy people who cant type more than 10 words. I really fail to see whats so special about facebook that any other site wouldnt already be doing without them.
Some kid rips off website. Makes billions selling out his members to corporate advertisers. Becomes youngest billionaire. Suddenly he's most interesting person on the planet? Um, no.
So let me get this straight, Zuckerberg is POTY because he's famous? Why not just make Paris Hilton or the Kardashians POTY? I mean hell thats all our society has come down to these days, famous for being famous.
It's not about popularity, it's about influence. While not everyone uses Facebook, it has started a revolution of sorts. Don't believe me? Look at all the news networks asking for "your" opinion through media like Twitter. Twitter wouldn't be around if Facebook hadn't succeeded. And remember, it doesn't have to be positive influence. Hitler was MOTY in 1938, not because he was popular. Not because he was good. He was MOTY because he had most affected the events of the previous year.
This is total BS. Zuckerberg may have created facebook and he may have "influenced" the life of some people, but COME ON. I bet half of those 500 million "users" are just like me, they made one just to see what all the fuss was about and, from time to time, accept a "friend" request that drops into the mail box and that's that. You can't say that's "influencing" me.
Compare that to what Assange is doing, ha and his website have completely changed the relations between most of the countries in the world and everyday we find out new things about how the US gov. is treating other governments.
This has now become as much, if not more, of a joke than the Nobel Peace Prize. Does not speak well of 2010 if this clown is the best Time could come up with...