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Sat 16 Dec, 2006 09:28 pm
Congratulations! You are the Time magazine "Person of the Year."
The annual honor for 2006 went to each and every one of us, as Time cited the shift from institutions to individuals ?- citizens of the new digital democracy, as the magazine put it. The winners this year were anyone using or creating content on the World Wide Web.
"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."
The magazine did cite 26 "People Who Mattered," from North Korean dictator Kim Jon Il to Pope Benedict XVI to the troika of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
And Stengel said if the magazine had decided to go with an individual, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the likely choice. "It just felt to me a little off selecting him," Stengel said.
The 2006 "Person of the Year" package hits newsstands Monday. The cover shows a white keyboard with a mirror for a computer screen where buyers can see their reflection.
It was not the first time the magazine went away from naming an actual person for its "Person of the Year." In 1966, the 25-and-under generation was cited; in 1975, American women were named; and in 1982, the computer was chosen.
"I always love it when it's a person ?- and it is a person, not a computer or something like that," Stengel said. "We just felt there wasn't a single person who embodied this phenomenon."
Last year's winners were Bill and Melinda Gates and rock star Bono, who were cited for their charitable work and activism aimed at reducing global poverty and improving world health.
Gad! I'm so thrilled. Do I get a cash prize along with the honor?
War raging...national debt exploding...and the citizens of this fine country hopelessly deadlocked in petty partisanships. Yet because we can and do surf the web we're honored.
Time magazine is a laughingstock.
Hey, I worked hard(ly) for this honor . I resent being mocked over it.
Don't forget, they own AOL and AOL has recently undergone some major changes to eliminate the proprietary AOL web-content that was its backbone for more than 15 years and open it up to the big wide web. It has switched revenue streams and now gets its income from advertising rather than subscriptions. The more web content out there, the more opportunities for AOL advertising revenues.
That puts Time Warner's pick all in perspective.
Yeah, but- -I've worn the letters off of my keyboard.
Also voted biggest cop-out by a major magazine since US News and World Report put George W. on the cover wearing a halo.
Joe(phhffft)Nation
Truthfully, Time has been a joke for a long time.
There aren't many magazines that are not jokes.
What surprises me is the number of suckers that still pay for them. They're nothing but advertising copy with a few lines of text and sensational photos thrown in as filler. Big waste of trees, ink and landfill space.
Looks like an Apple ad. Seriously, isn't that the same font down at the bottom?
Stolen from PDiddie:
To be sure, there are individuals we could blame for the many painful and disturbing things that happened in 2006. The conflict in Iraq only got bloodier and more entrenched. A vicious skirmish erupted between Israel and Lebanon. A war dragged on in Sudan. A tin-pot dictator in North Korea got the Bomb, and the President of Iran wants to go nuclear too. Meanwhile nobody fixed global warming, and Sony didn't make enough PlayStation3s.
But 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.
And we are so ready for it. We're ready to balance our diet of predigested news with raw feeds from Baghdad and Boston and Beijing. You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos -- those rumpled bedrooms and toy-strewn basement rec rooms -- than you could from 1,000 hours of network television.
Congratulations, you wild-eyed rebel.
I wonder if I can go up on my prices now? Man of the year and all....
Hmmm.
Looks the same to me.
Joe(note: buy more Apple )Nation
Looks like the "Person of the Year" department at Time got a little lazy this year.
"Who is the person of the year? Should we give it to that overrated douchebag Bono again?"
"Nah, that guy sucks. How about we throw everyone a loop, and give it to that Kim Bitch Li Jong Dong guy?"
"F**k this. Let's just give it to everyone."
"Hell yea. Throw me over another Pabst, bitch."
Nice, I've been featured twice now. In 1966, when Man of the Year was the 25 year old, I'd just turned 25.
Gads, I miss PDiddie..
Bi-Polar Bear wrote:I wonder if I can go up on my prices now? Man of the year and all....
Absoluetly, Bear. I plan to ask for a raise tomorrow.
Slappy Doo Hoo wrote:Looks like the "Person of the Year" department at Time got a little lazy this year.
"Who is the person of the year? Should we give it to that overrated douchebag Bono again?"
"Nah, that guy sucks. How about we throw everyone a loop, and give it to that Kim Bitch Li Jong Dong guy?"
"F**k this. Let's just give it to everyone."
"Hell yea. Throw me over another Pabst, bitch."
You're close. CNN broadcast TIME'S Person of the Year yesterday in which they showed some of the editorial meetings. (Fifty people brainstorming around a huge table, stacked three deep around the edges)
Says one guy "Well, if you are going to make it about them (meaning US) why not throw it out to them and let them vote on line?" (Huge groans and mumbles about fundamentalists push-polling for someone) Big boy editor says "No, that's why we have editors." Yeah.
So people on line are affecting the world more than any other group? It sure feels that way, so maybe they were right.
Joe(ask the guy in Banglalore the next time you call your bank)Nation
Thank you, thank you all for this prestigious award. I first like to thank my parents since if they never got together I wouldn't be here. Then my family, friends and pets. Especially my pets for I made the biggest impact to their lives.
I have always wanted to make an acceptance speech.
Joe Nation observed:
Quote:So people on line are affecting the world more than any other group? It sure feels that way, so maybe they were right.
Maybe yes, maybe no.
Meanwhile,
Time can ignore dictators and diplomats and red spokespeople and blue spokespeople and Christians and Muslims and Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all.
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