You, me, us...we're all Time's Person of the Year. Well, technically speaking not all of us (more on that in a bit). Time has selected, 'You' as Person of the Year because of the revolution in user-generated-content that is increasingly influencing society.
The December 25th issue features a number of articles surrounding the selection. There is of course the cover story, as well as:
- The YouTube Gurus
- Essay: Andy Was Right
- Enough About You
- It's All About Us
- The Beast With a Billion Eyes
- Web Boom 2.0
- Making Mischief on the Web
- My So-Called Second Life
The question is, what about the people not taking part in creating/using any of this user-generated-content? Are they part of the 'You'? Perhaps they should have a different cover of Time that says, 'Them'.
Visitor Comments
do you think it's possible that the iranian president won? but instead of choosing an axis of evil leader, time played it smart and chose a buzzy, eye catching winner that would offend no one and hopefully sell as many magazines
Posted by: curious | December 16, 2006 11:23 PM
I can't wait to put this on my resume!
Posted by: PNWW | December 17, 2006 3:35 PM
Here's the thing, Time has 21 million readers. I'm a big fan of blogs, but I don't know if we've got enough influence to compete with the major outlets yet.
Posted by: Josh | December 17, 2006 3:59 PM
I think this is a big deal, not because of the selection, but because of what the selection signifies. The Person of the Year is *always* about selling more magazines and generating more buzz. The selection of "you" indicates that Time's editors have done the calculations in their heads and realized that the best way to generate buzz is by involving the online community. Whether they think "you" are the people of the year is irrelevant. The important point is that they think selecting "you" is going to sell more magazines than selecting someone famous -- and it indicates, I think, that they believe the user-generated buzz-factor has reached a tipping point.
By the way, did you notice the pre-roll ad from Chrysler? "You may not be the Time Person of the Year."
I am so!
Posted by: David Brazeal | December 17, 2006 5:53 PM
Just by passively feeding data to search and recommendation engines, even people who don't create content can now determine which content makes the front page.
Posted by: Mike Abundo | December 18, 2006 1:15 AM
You are NOT the Person of the Year! I know who you is and its not you.
Posted by: David Temple | December 19, 2006 9:35 AM
As I read this Jon Stewart is on in the backround noise of my brain talking about Them-a-Culpas. If it is a You or Them mindset there's a syncronized war going on here. The word Them is not you. And you are not them. However, is Us and Them still a revelant question to ask and what all the fightings about?
Posted by: Kimberly Macher | December 19, 2006 11:31 PM
I dont understand how YOU are so happy for the TIME desicion nomination. The votes of you this year 2006 nominated to Hugo Chavez Frias President of Venezuela with 35% of the votes. But Time dont repecting the desicion of YOU the people, change our desicion.
Posted by: ivan | December 28, 2006 2:00 AM