TIMES magazine has an annual Person Of The Year issue that features a profile of a man, woman, couple, group, idea, place or machine that "for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year". It used to be known as the Man Of The Year, and during the time of political correctness it was retitled Person of The Year. The Computer had its year in 1982 as the first non-human picked. In 2005 there was more than one recipient with PersonS of The Year that profiled Bono, Bill Gates and wife, Melinda as The Good Samaritans.
This year TIME has chosen YOU: Those who use or create content on the World Wide Web. You know who you are. The same ones that go home and fire up that computer that's who. You say hello to the friends you make online by posting comments, sometimes you just watch or listen, sometimes you play RPG games with a geek like you in Finland, and most times you're simply curious.
[It reminded me of the Brownies initiation song I undertook at St. Andrew's school many years ago, "Twist me and turn me and show me the Elf. You look in the reflective mylar mirror fronting TIME's December 2006 issue and then saw? Yourself."]
In his take on why YOU were chosen TIME's Person of The Year Richard Stengel, opines:
"The new media age of Web 2.0 is threatening only if you believe that an excess of democracy is the road to anarchy. I don't."
I simply think that we make our world a cosier place to live in. Way to go us.
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