TIME person of the year: Mark Zuckerberg vs Julian Assange

Mark Zuckerberg has been named the TIME person of the year for 2010; a heavy accolade for anyone, let alone a shy, 26 year old software designer. There's certainly no denying the man's success; as CEO of Facebook he is at the head of one of the biggest and most influential online brands in the world. But despite this success, is Zuckerberg a worthy winner?

The Time Person of the Year is, as defined by the magazine itself, the person who "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year." Certainly Zuckerberg is influential, hugely so.

Facebook currently boasts over 500 million active users, spending over 700 billion minutes a month on the site. The statistics alone are staggering.

Undoubtedly, Facebook has changed the way in which many people go about their lives, or at least go about interacting with other people. For better or for worse, Facebook has been at the centre of personal privacy concerns online. It has courted controversy about how it handles and protects the vast amounts of data it holds on its millions of members.

Just as Google altered the way in which we use search online, so Facebook is altering the way we socialise online. And the way we socialise offline.

But there is a sense that perhaps there was something, and consequently someone, of greater influence over the past twelve months; Julian Assange and Wikileaks. In a way Assange and Zuckerberg share a bit of common ground; openness, the sharing of information, the power of the internet to achieve this. Indeed, one of the biggest themes this year has been privacy; Google streetview, Wikileaks, Facebook and numerous others.

For the sheer amount of column inches, the huge level of debate and the international fallout, Wikileaks and Assange are arguably the noisier, more 'influential' choice. The actions of the whistleblowing website are already having major repercussions, and these are likely to grow.

Perhaps it would be fair to say that Facebook has had a trivial and social impact and Wikileaks has had a political impact. But then how can we measure one against the other?

The blog-sphere and various voices online will inevitably call TIME's decision 'a huge cop-out'. It will be viewed as a sign that it is 'kowtowing' to pressure from the US not to aid Assange and Wikileaks.

Indeed, following governmental intervention, VISA, Mastercard, PayPal and Amazon have all, right or wrongly, cut-off the site. Some will now argue that TIME magazine is doing the same. That, of course, is very much open for debate.

Zuckerberg's rapid rise to fame and fortune cannot be underestimated and Facebook is a company and brand of massive influence. Comparatively, the true weight of the actions being carried out by Assange and Wikileaks are possibly yet to be fully understood.

At the end of all the debate and all the white noise, what will we be left with? Well, the fact is, regardless of how you spin it, two of the most influential people and organisations on the planet are all about technology. And that speaks volumes.