That’s phenomenal. The Times today announced its legendary “Person of the Year” traditionally in mid-December. And the winner is “you”. Who? You. Exactly.
I find this choice particulary great as I spend a significant portion of my time on such so called Web 2.0-concepts. And every day I have been questioning myself hypercritically if I wasn’t stuck in my own little mental bubble, but it seems that there is more to it. And that’s what the the Times editor Tom Grossman writes about the rationale:
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 find this selection particularly great as it takes a good part of courage for such a renowned magazine to give credit to a phenomenon which is shaking its own fundamentals. Yet, it is the display of an independant editorial department. What is more, it is a good start for every publisher to rethink and refine its own role in this new era where the sole power of public attention is no longer in its hands alone. But as an optimist, I have no doubt that on the levelled playing field there is much more to come for various players and that alltogether the best times still lie ahead.
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