I'm not without any sympathy for the thought processes behind Time's choice, but I nonetheless basically agree with August.
It's a truly wonderful thing that the internets lets everyone self-publish for free and potentially have an influence. But, you know, most people don't actually do any of that. And fewer of those who try have any success.
Usually with these types of things they choose someone or something which is somehow representative of the underlying phenomenon, like when Jeff Bezos was their pick. Along those lines "the youtube guys" or maybe, as Salon chose, S.R. Sidarth, would've been appropriate.
Keeping with my "it should have gone to the dirty fucking hippie" position, the fundamental political shift in 2006 was on the Iraq war so it could've, say, gone to Murtha or maybe people who got it right to begin with (ha ha, just kidding).
I'm still clueless why Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was even on the notional "short list." The dude really hasn't actually been of any real significance.
