Congratulations! You have been selected as the Person of the Year by Time!

I'm not kidding!

Link



To be debated:

1. Is this an appropriate choice for Person of the Year?

2. Who (or what) might you have selected instead?

3. How important is the development of user-generated content on the Internet?



1. I'm not sure. I had to think about this choice for a while. I certainly see the importance to technological society of things like YouTube and Wikipedia, but I'm not sure if this was the most critical news story of the year. This year's choice reminds me of last year's choice (Bill Gates and Bono as philanthropists, if memory serves.) They both seem like unexpected choices, if not exactly inappropriate.

2. I might have gone with two names which have become infamous in the news, at least here in the USA. That would be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Kim Jong Il of the People's Republic of Korea. Their actions and statements have drawn the attention of the world. (Perhaps Time could have placed their faces on the cover with a title such as "The Provocateurs.")

3. Perhaps this is the first real sign of the "global village" since Marshall McLuhan popularized that phrase. Our own little home here at serves of an example of an emerging salon, where a very special kind of communication can take place.

1. Is this an appropriate choice for Person of the Year?

Yes. For we the human race have altered the way information is being delivered to us. This is not new, but is easier and available to a good portion of the world. Anyone with a photo id can easily browse the internet at their library.


2. Who (or what) might you have selected instead?

The current choice is one that i find fitting.


3. How important is the development of user-generated content on the Internet?

Its very important and potentially damaging. Such things like viral marketing or fact less content can go unchecked.

I think it is a solid choice. The most approPRIATE? I think if this new century is going to be anything it is going to be an age where centralized anything takes its final breath. I think more an more are going to realize that large groups, organizations are simply too slow moving and to dedicated to self. For all of the media's endlessly self promoted power and prestige -- they were upstaged by the 2 slackers who created You Tube. They already paid an incredible sum for it and every other is trying to release their You tube "killer".
The Blogosphere brought down the one time Kings of News, the final blow after cable news like CNN delivered the first shot and Fox news broke the viewpoint monopoly. It is the same element that will keep the cable news outlets humble and very careful about what they say--so many sharks in the water just dreaming of the scent of blood in those waters now.
The public at large responded to Katrina faster and more efficiently than the government could ever hope to -- and our government showed clearly that they were more of a hindrance than help.
A favorite writer David Brin has some interesting stuff about what he titles the future Age of the Amateurs. Quite simply that we as individuals--or groups of can and will probably start to find our own solutions to just about every question we face. Leaving behind the sad efforts by government and in many cases business itself. Today we do indeed have not just the technology but a level of education never seen before in human history. Vast sums of accumulated Knowledge of just about any subject or process. Out of the millions come a few really Good Ideas. They start with the trivial like entertainment focused ideas like You Tube, that take something simple and apply it to a need offering a KISS solution that performs and meets a need brilliantly and then begins to spread into other areas.
Imagine this: Instead of companies or government sponsored research programs to create alternative energy ideas you take the combined efforts of thousands of minds with experience in the various areas of expertise. kind of an Open Source, Creative Commons effort. Sure lots of those involved aren't going to contribute much, but like many of these projects a few of the right people get involved, some with the knowledge, some with the ability to see what others can't or never have before, and some who can coordinate and organize like no one else.
Eventually the solutions begin to appear, are taken up by those with the ability to capitalize on them--and if done openly that means as many approaches to presenting the solution as there are people--instead of one or two well defended and closed door ventures.
It happened once before--remember the Powers that Were had to crush Tucker by hook and crook.

Call it DIY or Open Source whatever, I think you will see more and more start to follow that path. Like many and most "movements" it starts very small -- a You Tube, A blogosphere and then it begins to grow. Mini loans to the poor:
Mini-loans Make a Maxi Difference and Win the Nobel Peace Prize
New evangelism: mini loans
investment portfolios tailored from the stocks of companies dedicated to not just their profit motive, but a desire to operate in a way to enhance the world around them or even making that profit by making the world a better place:
Class of '07: The The Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Award Winners Which in turn inspire more and more to create those types of companies.

The really nice thing about information today is that it is almost impossible keep buried. So once the secrets are out attention has to be paid. It is also easier than ever to start a company--and have it break wide open--yes many many many will fail, but the ones that get through will change the world.
Want to save the world--drop the stupid protest placard and either go to school and learn something valuable--do we really NEED any more english lit majors? or invent something. At the very least the endeavor will be fun, at its best life altering.

Well I suspect that since I couldn't care less who Time thinks is the Person of the Year it really doesn't matter who they picked.

As for the appropriateness of the pick it seems like a grade school cop out... You're all winners today!

If the concept is that We make media and information now then maybe UUNet should be Person of the Year. Maybe the CISCO 2600 series routers? How about them Google fellas? You Tube kids? Jamie?

The novelty of user generated content will wane like Cable Access television because more of it is god Awful. It all isn't Paper_Lilies mostly it's incessant whining about Tiffany and Brad and how stupid they are followed by 200 grammatical nightmares of posts telling Amber what a nasty person she is. Oh that and people falling off of motorcycles.

Internet discussions eventually breakdown into a few people calling each other names and espousing that you can't prove a negative before someone mentions Hitler. Sites like this one try to curb that. (Trust me I know.) The truth is the internet is not a good place to discuss things because sarcasm is impossible to "get" consistently on the web. See also this.

In any event this "revolution" will run its course soon enough.

Time, like so many publications, is largelye irrelevant.

1. Is this an appropriate choice for Person of the Year?
Is Time Magazine even a news magazine anymore? This choice is pretty laughable to me.



Add a mirror on the cover to this fluffy excerpt and what do you have? Time searching for somebody to call Man of the Year. (Person?)

Here's a quote from Stengel:


Oh really? So they made this choice based on the fact that they wouldn't have to justify it?? How very courageous of them!

Did the global media get transformed in 2006? No. Still have CNN/MSNBC/Fox News and the regular news streams going. NYT and LA Times are still in business.

Was a digital democracy founded and framed in 2006? No (unless all that pre-supposed electronic voter fraud favored Democrats all of a sudden)

Were the pros beaten "at their own game"? Okay a couple of times, but not the majority. This last item is probably the only one with even a grain of truth in it.

Really is MySpace worthy of person of the year? YouTube? These are the video arcades of 2006. People waste countless hours on them. Wasting Time ( ) isn't news. Thank you Time Magazine for acknowledging such worthy pursuits. Time even acknowledges this in their piece.

By the way, here's a link to the actual Time article.

And interestingly, the poll that Time did had the YouTube guys in at 11% of the vote. Hugo Chavez won the poll with 35%. link

2. Who (or what) might you have selected instead?
I'd expect the "Person of the Year" to be a person. Call me weird. I think Ahmadinejad has influenced global events more than this mysterious "You" person. I'm certain that this is true in the Middle East, if not in the MidWest.

3. How important is the development of user-generated content on the Internet?

The one advantage in research type material is accessability. The drawback is lack of fact checking. As for entertainment, heck it creates a big diversion (YouTube, MySpace, etc.) which is great, but it isn't earth shattering.

1. Is this an appropriate choice for Person of the Year?

Complete cop out. Were they a little scared of the result they had generated by vote? The definition of the competition is as follows, according to their website.



Hugo Chavez is well ahead on this public vote with 35% followed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with 21%. My cynicism kicked in and I reckon they are going for a "comedy" cover rather than having to have a picture of either of those leaders on the cover with the "TIME's person of the year" under it.....

2. Who (or what) might you have selected instead?

I think Hugo Chavez would not be a bad choice. Bush has had a significant impact on people all over the world, but it's the legacy of previous actions rather than current actions so I think that drops him down the scale......

3. How important is the development of user-generated content on the Internet?

It is important, but we have yet to see how long lived the current fad is. User generated content in other media forms has been around for centuries, pampleteers and the such-like, but never had the audience that the internet allows. Ideally it wil allow a more democratic sense of media and news in the world - more direct access to real stories, but atm it is hard to find one's way through the lies.

I think this is a cop out as well. That being said I also believe that the criteria for choosing person of the year should be a person who has been a positive effect on the world. Granted people like Ahmadinejad, Chavez, and Bush have effected peoples lives, but in a negative way.

1. Is this an appropriate choice for Person of the Year?

I think it's pretty darn cool. I first got on the Internet in the 1980s through the old forum called CompuServe and saw the potential for what it has become. Actually, the reality has surprised everyone for the level of creativity and enterprise shown.

The Internet has become my dictionary and encyclopedia. It has become a form of social playground. Most of my purchases are done online, and I can pull up my bank information in an instant. I do technical research here, and by gosh if it isn't pretty good, often better than vendor sites because individuals dare to publish the truth online, unfettered by corporate interests.

Certainly there is a bunch of garbage that people do too (being careful about language here), but it doesn't take much to tell the difference between useful information and crap (not so careful here). Some Internet users have fun with their lines of, um, hyperbole. Whatever, it's easy to see through this kind of content.

The Internet keeps getting better because the good people survive and thrive while the bad ones drop off or get a tiny piece of action. Problems arise, as will happen for any human endeavor, yet solutions arise as well, and quickly.

We have hugely powerful search engines now, far superior to Archie (or was it Veronica?) in the early days, which were only twenty some years ago. The Web is only about thirteen years old. There are kids who have had nothing but the Web for using the Internet. There are workers who never experienced business without PCs and the Web. I remember an outfit that banned PCs from the workplace, and that was in the late 1980s. Let's just say time caught up with that outfit.

Anyway, good for us! We did it and continue to make it happen. Keep the Internet free (in the liberty sense) and open (in the development sense). We are strong enough to put up with the problems and smart enough to keep this thing becoming more amazing, seemingly each day. Definitely each year.

Besides, it'll keep me busy and off the streets.

2. Who (or what) might you have selected instead?

N/A

3. How important is the development of user-generated content on the Internet?

We who particpate in the Internet are NOT users. We are NOT simply consumers. We are also contributors, sponsors, producers, and entrepeneurs. Besides all the hardware and software involved, the Internet exists because we make it so.

One might ask how important is corporate-generated content. What do you trust more, the blah-blah from the publisher or the readers' comments when selecting a book? I go straight to the readers' comments. Also when buying hardware or software. I also search for sites that feature comments by people who have experience with a product.

Well, I could go on for a long time regarding this subject. We're Time's Peep O' Dah Year? Cool.