Dec 182006
Good call, TIME magazine, I’m counted among the annual ritual of “person of the year.” 
And it’s a great way to generate buzz for a print-based weekly news magazine.
But look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story, one that isn’t about conflict or great men. It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.
I knew you would pick up on this…
Hope this finds you well bro.
Yeah . . . I am not really sold on it. Maybe I am too cynical or Jon Stewart’s take on it was just too freaking funny (See 12.12.07 episode), but the whole mirror thing is a little trite/goofy for my taste, especially from Time. The spokesperson for Time who was interviewed by Soledad Obrien was not a very helpful choice as well. But before my cynical nature does take over, I do like and agree with the quoted paragraph above; and I should probably actually read the article before casting too many stones
Power to the people!
Bruce, I know, I know, Will Samson didn’t like it either. I rolled with the punches, and the whole web thing is a bit over done, but often the Person of the Year thing, and the year in review things that we’ll see all next week, is trite and banal and repetitious of what’s already happened and known by all. I’m not all that into nostalgia or reminiscing myself, so I’m not riding the hype by any stretch of the imagination. I think it’s another small hint that print-based media are struggling to find content, when the good people in the fast-paced online world can generate content so much faster and some of it even quite compelling.