Facebook founder named time`s person of 2010
Baku, December 16 (AZERTAC). Time magazine has picked Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg as its annual Person of the Year, the figure it believes had the most influence on events in 2010.
The 26-year-old billionaire was the subject of a 2010 film, The Social Network, charting Facebook`s rise.
Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange earlier won a Time readers` poll on 2010`s most influential person.
The annual feature has been a fixture since the 1920s, with the winner appearing on the front cover of Time.
The Person of the Year (formerly Man of the Year) title is awarded by the magazine`s editors to the figure deemed to have had the most influence on world events that year - not necessarily in a positive way, the British Broadcasting Corporation reports.
Hitler, Stalin and the Ayatollah Khomeini have all won in the past.
In recent years, the title has gone to less controversial figures. In 2009, United States Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke won it, while US President Barack Obama won it the year before.
At 26, Zuckerberg has put himself on the map not only as one of the world`s youngest billionaires, but also as a prominent newcomer to the world of philanthropy.
Earlier this year, he pledged $100 million over five years to the Newark, New Jersey school system. Now, he`s in the company of media titans Carl Icahn, 74, Barry Diller, 68, and others who have joined Giving Pledge, an effort led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett to commit the country`s wealthiest people to step up their charitable donations.
Zuckerberg owns about a quarter of Facebook`s shares.
Time`s ”Person of the Year” is the person or thing that has most influenced the culture and the news during the past year for good or for ill.
The decision to name Zuckerberg Person of the Year followed weeks of debate and discussion among Time editors and staff members.
Time editors stress that being named Person of the Year is not an honor. In fact, their definition of the designation goes like this: “The person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse.”
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