Facebook Co-Founder Mark Zuckerberg Named Time'S Person Of The Year

[News_Editor]

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg named TIME's Person of the Year

2010-12-16 04:20:04 GMT+7 (ICT)

WASHINGTON D.C. (BNO NEWS) -- TIME Magazine on Wednesday announced that it named Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg as its 2010 Person of the Year.

Zuckerberg was selected for the prestigious award for creating a new way to exchange information, connecting over half a billion people around the world and essentially changing social interactions.

TIME's Person of the Year is given to the individual who - for better of worse - manages to influence the year's events. Zuckerberg, 26, is the second youngest person to earn the award after pilot Charles Lindbergh was selected in 1927.

The favorite for this year's award was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange but writers and editors selected Zuckerberg after a consensus and advice from past winners. Others in the 2010 contest were the Tea Party, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and the 33 rescued Chilean miners.

In February 2004, Zuckerberg, who was then a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard, started a Web service from his dorm. It was called Thefacebook.com, and it was an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges.

In 2010, almost seven years later, Facebook added its 550 millionth member which means that one out of every dozen people on the planet has a Facebook account. Its members speak 75 languages and collectively spent over 700 billion minutes on Facebook every month.

Its membership is currently growing at a rate of about 700,000 people a day. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest, only behind India and China. Facebook's membership is currently growing at a rate of about 700,000 people a day.

"70% of Facebook users live outside the U.S. We have entered the Facebook age, and Mark Zuckerberg is the man who brought us here," TIME said in a statement.

Some criticized TIME's decision to not give the award to Assange, who had been leading TIME's online Person of the Year poll. In 2009, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was named Person of the Year.

Other previous winners include current U.S. President Barack Obama, former Russian President and current Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and 'You'.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2010-12-16

[nikster]

Adding 700,000 a day... unreal

[geriatrickid]

He has a rather pretty girlfriend Priscilla Chan, that he met at Harvard the same year he was developing Facebook. She moved with him to Palo Alto to build the company. I have a feeling that she's the guy's anchor, soundingboard and dragon in the boardroom. And yet she keeps a very low profile. I have a hunch she's the other 1/2 of the person of the year. Maybe she keeps mark's ego in check by advising whether he merits a "like" after coitus.

[siamect]

"Zuckerberg has done more harm to the human race than anyone else his age."

-Eben Moglen

If you don't like glasses then here is a better longer one.

Martin

[nikster]

I know it's fiction but I found "The Social Network" pretty insightful in terms of explaining Facebook. How it happened, how it's different from social networks that came before etc. There's certainly an aspect to Facebook that I did not at all understand before. Facebook stays relevant because it builds on and feeds existing real-world social networks. The technology is boring - the psychology is what makes it special.

Most geeks still don't get that BTW - when I read any post about fb on TechCrunch or another techie site, it's almost funny how most geeks manage to *still* miss the point. Even thought it's obvious - Facebook has 500M users; your average tech site has 1M users of which 1000 or so post in the comments. The 1M users of the tech sites are those that have the most trouble understanding facebook's appeal - but there are 499M other Facebook users who get it. These people have only minimal overlap with the tech community, in terms of numbers.

[cdnvic]

I get a laugh when I hear people blame Facebook for productivity losses. People who spend the workday on Facebook now were not the best workers before it came along either. They just play a lot less solitaire now.

[Wallaby]

My work blocked FB and YouTube etc. Now I spend my day on Thai Visa. Only a matter of time........

[nikster]

best tweet on the topic

Share government's secrets, go to jail. Share normal people's secrets, TIME man of the year!

[bangkokcitylimits]

Funny is that Mark is living in an average rental townhouse

[cdnvic]

best tweet on the topic

Share government's secrets, go to jail. Share normal people's secrets, TIME man of the year!

That post needs a like button. :jap:

[nikster]

Funny is that Mark is living in an average rental townhouse

That is pretty funny for the youngest Billionaire on earth, indeed. He does have a Ferrari or two though