Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken another step toward becoming a cultural god. On Wednesday, the cofounder of the popular social-networking site was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year.
On the heels of a hit movie in which the Zuckerberg character has the central role, the World’s Youngest Billionaire captured the honor that Time says goes to the person who has most influenced the culture and the news in the last year. His site, the magazine said, would be the third-largest country in the world, behind China and India, if it were a country. But, the magazine said, it has become something more.
Quarter of All U.S. Page Views
“It started out as a lark, a diversion,” the magazine continued, “but it has turned into something real, something that has changed the way human beings relate to one another on a species-wide scale.”
As the magazine noted, one of every dozen people on this planet has a Facebook account, and more than 700 billion minutes of human activity are logged on the site every month. In the U.S., a quarter of all page views on the Internet are on the site, and the 550 million membership is growing by about 700,000 people daily.
Among past Time selectees for this honor, only Charles Lindbergh at 25 in 1927 was younger than this year’s selection. Queen Elizabeth II, who has recently established her own Facebook account to keep in touch with her subjects and other friends, was 26 when she graced the magazine’s cover in 1952.
Zuckerberg’s cultural-hero status wasn’t diminished by his recent contribution of $100 million over five years to the Newark, N.J., school system. With a net worth estimated as high as $14 billion and derived from his ownership of a quarter of Facebook’s stock, the CEO recently joined Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge,…