Posted by Anand Kahaly in News on December 16, 2010  |  0 Comments More from this author  |  Website  |  Follow Anand Kahaly on: Twitter |

On 15th December 2010, Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg was named TIME magazine's Person of the Year 2010. TIME Person of the Year was first given in 1927 to Charles Lindbergh for his solo New York to Paris flight. This award is given to those who have influenced world events or influenced the lives of the people in a big way, no matter how good or bad the impact is. Thats why even Adolf Hitler was named TIME magazine's Person of the Year 1938 when the world was gazing at the beginning of World War II. Is Mark Zuckerberg influential? No doubt, he is. He has wired and connected half a billion people. He has changed the way people communicate with each other. But is Mark Zuckerberg more influential than others, is a question that you might ponder over especially when you have WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and Apple's Steve Jobs as the contenders for the award.

Mark Zuckerberg can now be seen on the cover page of TIME magazine for being the most influential person of the year 2010. But the actual public opinion poll done by TIME magazine for the Person of the Year award show Julian Assange as the clear winner, with Mark Zuckerberg in the 10th spot. To take a look at poll results click here.

Julian Assange
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Lady Gaga
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert
Glenn Beck
Barack Obama
Steve Jobs
The Chilean Miners
The Unemployed American
Mark Zuckerberg

Having said that , Mark Zuckerberg is not a suprising pick, if you see Facebook in terms of growth this year, the privacy issues and the release of new products like Facebook Places, Facebook Email Service etc. Not to forget the "The Social Network Movie" on Mark Zuckerberg and "The Facebook Book".

Here is what TIME said for choosing Mark Zuckerberg "For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year".

With this award Mark Zuckerberg has now joined the likes of Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Jeff Bezos. The two other tech personalities to have received the award are Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos.

As for Julian Assange, until he gets his biography screened on the silver screen and pledge to give away his wealth, he has to be content with the world's most rebel poster boy image.

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