TIME - Person of the Year

[Cloudy]

Person of the Year: You
Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.

...look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It's not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it's really a revolution.

Full story

Everybody let's say Hooray! We're on the cover of TIME..just like Bill Gates, President Bush..mmm....

Edit: I'm printing this cover for my Wall of Fame.

[J@3]

Should've happened to me years ago but this is still acceptable.

[Jugs]

Great. How ego boosting is this!

[Jing]

They must have just ran out of ideas... and people

[Matt]

my momma will be so proud.

[shadowgrin]

I would to thank everyone for this prestigious award.
*wipes a tear from my eye*
I love you all.
*can't cotrol it*

I love you, I really do.

[j.23]

longggg overdue.

[sdude]

first thing i've ever won

[Riot]

It should have gone to Ricky Bobby.

[J@3]

Well technically it did.

[RSox]

Finally they got smart and knew who really belongs on the cover. Nice pick TIME

[bigh0rt]

Seems like a cop out, but I won't complain.

EDIT: (Maybe we shouldn't be thrilled about winning )

The title is frequently mistaken as being an honor. Many, including some members of the American media, continue to wrongly perpetuate the idea that the position of "Person of the Year" is a reward or prize, despite the magazine's frequent statements to the contrary. Part of the confusion stems from the fact that many admirable people have been given the title—perhaps the majority. Thus, journalists will frequently describe a new person of the year as having "joined the ranks" of past winners such as Martin Luther King. The fact that people such as Adolf Hitler have been granted the title as well is often less well-known.

There was a massive public backlash in the United States after Time named Ayatollah Khomeini as Man of the Year in 1979, which caused thousands of subscribers to end their subscription. Since then, Time has generally shied away from choosing controversial candidates. Time's Person of the Year 2001 — in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks — was New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. It was a somewhat controversial result; many thought that Giuliani was deserving, but many others thought that the rules of selection ("the individual or group of individuals who have had the biggest effect on the year's news") made the obvious choice Osama bin Laden. They cited previous choices such as Adolf Hitler to demonstrate that Person of the Year did not necessarily mean "best human being of the year." It is interesting to note that the issue which declared Rudolph Giuliani as Person of the Year included an article that mentioned Time's earlier decision to make Ayatollah Khomeini as Man of the Year in 1979 and the 1999 rejection of Hitler as "Person of the Century." The article seemed to imply that Osama bin Laden was a stronger candidate than Giuliani for Person of the Year and Hitler was a stronger candidate than Albert Einstein for Person of the Century, but they were not ultimately selected due to what the magazine described as their "negative" influence on history.

According to stories in respected newspapers, Time's editors anguished over the choice, reasonably fearing that selecting the al-Qaeda leader might offend readers and advertisers. Bin Laden had already appeared on its covers on October 1, November 12, and November 26. Many readers expressed dissatisfaction at the idea of seeing his face on the cover again. In the end, Giuliani's selection led some to criticize that Time had failed to uphold its own declared standards.

[Ruff Ryder]

Me? WTF, I voted for the youtube guys.

[benji]

"If you choose an individual, you have to justify how that person affected millions of people," said Richard Stengel, who took over as Time's managing editor earlier this year. "But if you choose millions of people, you don't have to justify it to anyone."

Apparently next year's:

[Riot]

Can we technically put this on our resume?

[Cloudy]

I think being on the TIME cover is just like being able to ride a bike now... I don't think it's good for the resume..

[cyanide]

I don't think being Time Person of the Year means much anymore now. Especially when people like wisdom_kid or Legend has the exact same award as me

[bigh0rt]

Can we technically put this on our resume?

If I were an employer and anyone had it on their resume, I'd wipe my ass with it and tell them the position was filled.

[Axel]

So Coolmac and Dweaver are both person of the year also....