Time Magazine’s Person Of The Year has been received to huge buzz, because this year, they’ve decided that this person to follow in the footsteps of folks like Ghandi and Churchill is you. Why? Because of all the great things you’re doing on the web. All those great blogs and podcasts and video clips. Time writes:
We’re looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it’s just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy.
Oh hang on a second.
But you’re not all doing that, are you? We can’t get more than 2 dozen of you to upload a video of yourself to YouTube – and maybe that’s because you’re not, yet, part of an in-crowd of pro-am producers making all these changes in the media landscape happen. Nothing wrong in that, of course, it’s just Time may have announced your fame a little too early (it’s ok, they did that to Hitler too – he got picked as Person of the Year a full year before he marched into Poland).
Influx has some great discussion on this and says,
The problem is that Time isn’t really talking about “You”, instead, they’re highlighting active contributors, or what some people call the One Per Centers; the people with time on their hands to write blogs, do sketch comedy on You Tube, write restaurant reviews, etc. It’s an elite group of “creators” motivated by the quest for fame, attention and sometimes, a good old-fashioned desire to help people… In the end, whether “You” really makes it to the big league won’t depend on its impact in media and marketing, but instead, the world’s of politics and government. When that happens; you will really deserve to be Person of the Year.
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So it really is all about me. I mean, us.
December 18th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Most of the media world commentary, including a pithy piece by Marketwatch’s Jon Friedman, has been negative — and righly so in my view.
Call me old-fashioned, but I can only feel that TIME’s editors (along with many of the rest of Time Inc.’s employees) are feeling so insecure and threatened by the continued success of non-print forms of media & UGC that they had to let it all out somehow.
Given all that’s going on in the world today — Iraq, global warming, Darfur, etc. etc. etc. — I had been looking forward to seeing how TIME would balance the impact of events & trends. Sorry, but this ain’t it.
Pathetic.
December 19th, 2006 at 4:22 am
Sorry — but I couldn’t help it.It’s Gandhi, not Ghandi. :)
December 19th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Wow – I think Influx’s point is totally wrong and in itself, elitist and “old-media” of them. The connections being forged, the creativity being poured out, and the volume of entertainment now found online by people like YOU is nothing short of astounding. The impact on politics and government is immeasurable so trying to quantify it at this stage is futile. I can tell you that the political blog posts I have my parents read have indeed changed their voting patterns, so if you really want to measure impact, I guess we can start with 2 votes. But I hardly think I’m alone in this POV. Cheers, Ben
December 19th, 2006 at 12:05 pm