‘You’ are the Person of the Year Says Time
December 20th, 2006 by pamela
Time Magazine’s person of the Year is always eagerly awaited, but I bet you never thought that you would be the winner did you?
Referring to all the ‘you’s that have come together to make the year one of the most interesting and innovative years we’ve ever seen in the online world, Time has honoured millions of people all over the world for their contribution to the global community in 2006.
According to Time, “In 2006, the World Wide Web became a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter”
While individuals all over the world have caused mayhem this year in various countries and by various means, Time has honoured the fact that the internet has been the medium for a tremendous force of collective will, a collaboration of millions of people all over the world coming together to share, inspire, discuss and empower – “a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before.”
We have watched as community became king online, and while there are those for whom the online community has done little more than provide footage of Britney Spears talking time travel, or Paris Hilton falling out of yet another limousine (hasn’t she gotten out of enough of them to figure out how to do it with dignity by now?!), the real story is how people have mobilised online to talk about the state of the world, making global media sit up and take notice of the millions of people out there who don’t normally have their voices heard.
As Time says, “Sure, it’s a mistake to romanticize all this any more than is strictly necessary. Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred.
But that’s what makes all this interesting. Web 2.0 is a massive social experiment, and like any experiment worth trying, it could fail.”
Whether it succeeds or fails, Web 2.0 has opened up the eyes and ears of world – long may it continue.
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