TIME magazine has named Mark Zuckerberg Person of the Year for 2010. Of course, you probably knew that already; anyone with a blog or a Web site is pretty much obligated to post and comment about it, so here’s my $.02:

If the conversation today on Morning Joe is any indication, this is a lousy decision. TIME’s Managing Editor Richard Stengel and the Morning Joe gang were basically crediting Facebook with cultural changes in the way people communicate digitally that would be happening anyway independent of whether Facebook existed at all. It’s kind of like crediting the company that makes copper wire for the cultural changes brought by telephone communications.

Maybe I’m tapping into my cynical side here, but if The Social Network doesn’t get made, Zuckerberg doesn’t get the nod; not even close. Plus, placing the figurehead of a Web site with 500 million users on your cover is a pretty good way to guarantee a decent single-issue sale.

Here’s TIME’s rationalization. And here are some links if you want to explore further coverage and comments from various outlets: BBC, Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, Salon and Slashdot. Weekly World News has their own picks, and you won’t want to miss The Borowitz Report’s take on it all.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 15th, 2010 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Internet Stuff.