[r9etb]

but Sarah Palin and/or the Tea Party would have been a better choice for dramatic influence upon 2010 US public affairs

Here's a picture of worldwide facebook connections.

Sarah Palin and The Tea Party movement are small change by comparison.

[Enchante]

I said “for influence upon US public affairs” so the FB “map” is not the relevant comparison.

Also, millions or billions of “connections” worldwide does not necessarily translate into world historical significance — so much of what happens on Facebook (and I do use it) is utterly insignificant.

However, if the standard for POTY is for a “world” newsmaker then I certainly don’t quarrel with the choice of Zuckerberg for 2010. It still remains to be seen whether the lasting “cultural” impact of FB is all that big or just another flash in the pan ala AOL and Yahoo etc. Certainly FB is putting up big numbers of users, and I do enjoy it some, but a case can be made that it’s not (yet) making any big cultural and political “newsworthy” type of impact.