Founder of Facebook Named Time Magazine's Person of the Year

What do George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth II and Mark Zuckerberg all have in common?

The answer - they all share the distinction of having been named as Time Magazine's "Person of the Year".

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, was named as the Time Magazine 2010 Person of the Year earlier today.

The runners-up? The Tea Party, Hamid Karzai, Julian Assange and the Chilean Miners.

Given how Julian Assange (founder of WikiLeaks) has been dominating the headlines as of late, many people expected him to be named as the "Person of the Year", but the honor ended up being bestowed upon Mark Zuckerberg instead.

You can't really argue with the choice of Zuckerberg, as it has been a very big year for Facebook's founder.

Zuckerberg was immortalized by Jesse Eisenberg in the movie "The Social Network", which was adapted by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin from a Ben Mezrich novel. The movie opened to incredibly strong reviews and is considered to be a front-runner in the race for "Best Picture" at the Academy Awards.

Facebook has enjoyed another remarkable year, and is now used by an estimated 550 million people who spend over 700 billion minutes PER MONTH on the site. 700,000 new members sign up PER DAY.

The rapid growth of Facebook has made Mark Zuckerberg a very rich man. Facebook is currently valued at around $50 billion in secondary trading, which makes Zuckerberg's stake in the company worth an estimated $7 billion.

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Zuckerberg, who became a self-made billionaire in his early 20s, has joined Charles Lindbergh and Queen Elizabeth as two of the youngest recipients of Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" distinction.

Does Zuckerberg deserve the title? I think so - what do you think?

Source: Time.com - Mark Zuckerberg, 2010 Person of the Year

Filed under: General Knowledge