Time Magazine have pulled off the Link Bait of the year with their Person of the Year Award. They’ve named ‘You’ (and me) as the winner of the award.
By ‘You’ they give the award to anyone involved in user generated content – that’s social media, blogging, video sharing etc etc etc.
“And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.”
While I think it’s a great award (you/we) have been a part of a massive shift) I think it’s also a brilliant Linkbait strategy (planned or unplanned). Can you imagine the inbound links this is going to create for Time?!? Every user generated content maker is going to be linking to this one! :-)
PS: thanks to everyone who emailed this story through – Kris was first off the mark.
Digg This Story Here
Update: Check out the links already coming in via Technorati for person of the year. I bet this graph goes crazy later today:
While user-generated content is great, it seems pretty lame to declare “You” as the person of the year. Now that you’ve exposed it as a clever scheme to drive traffic to their site, I’ll be sure to avoid linking it on all my blogs.
This is a nice alternative view on the whole Person of the Year award. However I think it’s an OK recognition, because Web 2.0 has actually made a major difference in society. And yes, their webtraffic will probably skyrocket, though I think this only proves their point, or the fact about Web 2.0 in 2006.
[…] Time’s story might have it’s hidden agenda, pointed out by Darren Rowse, as their webtraffic will skyrocket. Bookmark this post:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
You guys are kind of nuts for criticising TIME MAGAZINE, a print publication, for recognzing us as relevant. Hats off to Time, it was only a matter of…Time.
“criticizing”. Fine, make fun of that too.
darren,
excellent point!
mark
[…] Wow, I’m person of the year…well, at least according to Time Magazine, which has deemed the user-generated (Myspace, Facebook, YouTube, blogs) phenomena worthy as being its annual Person of the Year. Of course, I’m flattered because it validates all the hours I’ve spent toiling away on my computer – hours that could have been devoting to my family and friends. But no, I’m part of a greater cause: the user-generated revolution that is going to drive traditional media to their knees. Good for you, Time! Good for you to lavishing praise on the Internet as opposed to some humanitarian, politician, celebrity, businessman or athlete. Good for you for recognizing it’s really all about me (and you and you and you as well). Good for you for recognizing Web 2.0 as “really a revolution”, and good for you for recognizing this interactive, do-it-yourself Web is not Tim Berners-Lee’s Web. Then again, what if Time’s wrong? What if Time has simply got caught up in dot-com boom II, which is different than dot-com boom I because investors aren’t being suckered into throwing dollars in start-ups without a chance. Arguably, Time’s recognition of the Web’s impact could have happened five years ago as it started to really emerge into the mainstream. So, what’s really different now other than a new set of different players that have jumped into the public consciousness such as Wikipedia, YouTube and MySpace? Don’t get me wrong, I love it when a large publication such as Time puts the spotlight on my world but sometimes you have to question whether the focus is over the top and given too much significance than it really deserves. For more thoughts on Time’s package, check out Paul Kedrosky, who criticizes Josh Quittner’s contention this boom is different than the original dot-com boom. “This boom is achingly similar, with the main difference being that it is cheaper this time to get yourself in just as deep — and this time there is no IPO market to bail you out,” Kedrosky argues. Meanwhile, Peter Cashmore looks at how Time has identified video (YouTube) as a major development, while Darren Rowse describes the Time’s story as “Link Bait of the Year” given all many inbound links it will attract, « Dream On, You Canadian Entrepreneurs […]
Linkbaiting or not, you have to admit it’s a damn fine piece of buzz generating article.
You have to admit that a powerful mainstream media publication like TIME will help in introducing Web 2.0 and social networking to millions of readers.
I expect other MSM will follow their steps, so we might just see a bubblicious 2007 for start-ups. By the way, Happy Holidays to you and the family Darren, and to ProBlogger readers.
Hey,
You are obsessed with link baiting. Time is a big brand. Time couldn’t care less about some bunch of links…
[…] Good call by Darren — Linkbait of the year. Check out the unbelievable buzz over at Techmeme. […]
[…] Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger awards TIME the Linkbaiter of the Year Award because naming you as the Person of the Year will create so much backlinks to TIME, it may push their Google PageRank to 10. While I think it’s a great award (you/we) have been a part of a massive shift) I think it’s also a brilliant Linkbait strategy (planned or unplanned). Can you imagine the inbound links this is going to create for Time?!? Every user generated content maker is going to be linking to this one! […]
[…] Little did they know that Time would become linkbaiter of the year by naming everyone on the Internet as person of the year for 2006! More on Techmeme, Copyblogger and lots of others. […]
[…] thinking instead of hyping.) Scott Karp – December 17th, 2006 | Email | Print | Link | Del.icio.us Bookmark | Submit to Digg Categories: Media 2.0, Consumer-Generated Media, Marketing 2.0,Hype […]
I’m with NYC blogger, I think its great Time recognized us. Hopefully it will turn more people on to blog reading and help everyone out.
I think it’s a bit cynical to write the award off as pure link baiting. Maybe Darren is link baiting on link baiting. Seems to be working, you sly fox.
LOL – this is one of those occasions where my half attempt at humor fell flat on it’s face as I wrote last week I’m no good at this.
Although – you have to admit – they’ve got one of the biggest stories in the blogosphere today. I’ve lost count of how many bloggers I’ve read today claiming to be person of the year :-)
[…] It is undoubtedly surprising change to have moved away from the tradition of nominating an individual person to have received this distinction and have taken the step of nominating the entire industry associated with the social networking hype. I think it’s a great award for us all as we have truly been a part of a paradigm shift but at the same time its a Linkbait strategy (planned or unplanned – ProBlogger) as it will create massive inbound links for TIME slowly as the as the news spreads ensuring a rise in page-ranking . With the announcement of the Person of the Year Time Magazine has already attracted over 17,000 incoming links jumping the average of 40 links per day to a whopping 160 in just one day (Technorati Chart) and it will continue to rise as the blogging community takes a bow for a job well done. Criticisms aside TIME defends its decision to honor an entire community Citizen Media Journalism by stating The “Great Man” theory of history is usually attributed to the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who wrote that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men.” He believed that it is the few, the powerful and the famous who shape our collective destiny as a species. That theory took a serious beating this year. […]
Darren and friends,
What TIME didn’t do was give us some nice award seal to put on our blogs/websites…
So I’ve taken the initiative to do that myself.
Of course I am DEFINITELY not trying for any linkbait of my own :)
Enjoy:
http://www.alistercameron.com/2006/12/18/time-person-of-the-year-unofficial-seal/
– Alister
[…] Aaron just IM’d me to let me know that my post on TIME being linkbaiter of the year has climbed up to #3 on Techmeme (actually it got to #2). […]
[…] TIME magazine has proclaimed their person of the year as “YOU” meaning the rise of user generated social networks that are the backbone of Web 2.0. The proclamation has been seeing the gamut of responses from the real founders of Web 2.0 – the citizen journalists; and just as with main stream media they are either gushing over the award or in the words of Darren (problogger) While I think it’s a great award (you/we) have been a part of a massive shift) I think it’s also a brilliant Linkbait strategy (planned or unplanned). Can you imagine the inbound links this is going to create for Time?!? Every user generated content maker is going to be linking to this one! […]
Good ole link baiting methods. If you can’t beat em’, join em’ :)
[…] So whether this is the best link bait of the year, or confused why Time did this only now, still the fact is I am one of Time’s Person of the Year 2006. And I deserve to put this (un) official seal. Read the Time article Get your own seal […]
So, it really is all about me. I mean, us.
You know when I first read your post; I thought Darren has nailed it. Then one commenter said you were nuts to criticize time.
A couple of points, first off far more people read Time than any blog on the planet. More than most blogs on the planet combined in fact.
Just an idea of how Big time is:
“Time Inc. magazines are read 340 million times each month worldwide by 173 million adults over18 years of age. Two out of every three U.S. adults read a Time Inc. publication every month. In the last year, about 70% of women in the U.K. read a magazine published by Time Inc.’s IPC Media unit, the largest consumer magazine company in the U.K.
Time Inc. continues to account for nearly a quarter of the advertising revenue of all U.S. consumer magazines. Time Inc. ended 2005 with three out of the top four magazines in both advertising revenues and pages. People remained the #1 magazine in advertising revenue for the 15th consecutive year. Seven of the top 25 magazines in advertising revenues in 2005 were Time Inc. titles. ”
So when a traditional media magazine this big recognizes how big new media has become it is a very big deal.
As new media content creators we often forget just how small we really are compared to the whole non blogging world out there.
I repeat this often because it bares repeating. Most people I speak to when I tell them about my blog, let alone my show BlogWorld ask me “what exactly is a blog?”.
These aren’t idiots living in caves. These are professionals, smart people, computer savvy people, business leaders and most of them have no clue.
That isn’t to say new media isn’t big it is and Time magazine just told the world about it.
No matter their motivations, what Time just did was a very good thing for bloggers, and new media content creators everywhere.
So if they get a few dozen, hundred, or thousand links out of it, I say good for them.
[…] Darren Rowse who is a great blogging advocate gently chided Time earlier today for their person of the year award. When I first read his post, I thought he had nailed it, then I thought he was a bit harsh on Time and felt compelled to post this in his comments section which I wanted to repeat here: […]
[…] Cue every content-generating user out there linking to Time’s website. Finger on the pulse, or cunning traffic-generating strategy, asks ProBlogger. […]
The Person of the idea is a tired idea. It is sad that Time and many old media maagazines hasve rely on blog-like link articles to survive.
MediaVidea has more on the issue:
http://mediavidea.blogspot.com/2006/12/no-time-for-time-magazine.html
[…] I do agree with Darren Rowse at Problogger.net that Time wins the Linkbaiter of the year Award! And with Rodney who says that the person of the year is whoever came up with the idea! Ahh yes, the irony! Published December 18th, 2006 | in Blogging and Internet fun.| […]
[…] Unique people are grabbing the spotlight and creating runaway hits simply by offering their own unique perspective on things. The power of a unique perspective can capture an audience’s attention. While most people were recently writing about Time Magazine’s interesting choice for Person of The Year, Problogger Darren Rowse commented on how Time magazine made itself into linkbaiter of the year with it’s decision to crown you, me, and everyone else, Person of the Year for “seizing the reins of the global media”. […]
[…] Gercekten kontrol bizde olsaydi Time’in bizi secmesine biz karar vermis olmaz miydik? Ironik, oyle degil mi? Sahsen, bu secimi ben cogunlukla bir reklam yaklasimi, bir “yeni nesil web ve medya treni hizla gidiyor ben de vagona atlayayim ve tarihte yerimi alayim” yaklasimi, ve belki de bir “link baiting” yaklasimi olarak goruyorum. Bana gore Time vagona atlarken Web 2.0 furyasini sisirdikce sisiriyor ve goz boyamaya calisiyor. Cunku medyanin kontrolu henuz biz de degil. […]
O software livre em 2007. Ou talvez não……
Já que estamos “naquela” época do ano em que todos tentam adivinhar o que vai acontecer no ano seguinte e invariavelmente fracassam, resolvi me arriscar a passar vergonha no final do ano que vem, quando olharemos para esse post com um ar saudoso, d…
[…] TIME Wins Linkbaiter of the Year Award From the ProBlogger.com Web site. (tags: blogging link linkbait time person) […]
[…] Who would have dreamt how, why, and that it would become possible? That You would make it possible? Update: Added a Time Person of the Year unofficial seal. Do you agree it’s genius linkbait? I don’t. Why rain on “my” parade? […]
Yes, and no.
Time doesnt care about making their site more legitmate – But they do care about traffic. Everyone does.
[…] Flock! The Social Browser!, Flock! The browser for bloggers! well, these are the statements which are creating the buzz for this browser. The browser which supports Michael Arrington (Monstrous traffic generator for startups) as well (Rather the company, who sponsors Techcrunch.com) and the browser which uses the Gecko as its rendering engine. After, reading all this I’m sure anyone will consider this browser as the top and the best browser ever built and when it has the social tag around it then certainly it becomes the choice of the year as well (By the way, in case someone doesn’t know, then let me enlighten you that TIME has chosen “YOU” as the Person of the year!). But, does the browser gives you what it is boasting about ? Why is it still not doing the best, after having all these of frills wrapped around it ? Let’s find out all this in the review of this browser and as one of the blogging software as well. This piece of software will fall in two categories and one is the browser and the other is the blogging software. So, lets find out more about Flock! […]
[…] Flock! The Social Browser!, Flock! The browser for bloggers! well, these are the statements which are creating the buzz for this browser. The browser which supports Michael Arrington (Monstrous traffic generator for startups) as well (Rather the company, who sponsors Techcrunch.com) and the browser which uses the Gecko as its rendering engine. After, reading all this I’m sure anyone will consider this browser as the top and the best browser ever built and when it has the social tag around it then certainly it becomes the choice of the year as well (By the way, in case someone doesn’t know, then let me enlighten you that TIME has chosen “YOU” as the Person of the year!). But, does the browser gives you what it is boasting about ? Why is it still not doing the best, after having all these of frills wrapped around it ? Let’s find out all this in the review of this browser and as one of the blogging software as well. This piece of software will fall in two categories and one is the browser and the other is the blogging software. So, lets find out more about Flock! […]
[…] Time wins linkbaiter of the year award […]
[…] Time wins linkbaiter of the year award […]
Wow… it’s not only a creative story but a marketing technique as well! That’s pretty genius of TIME.
The user-generated world is great… we haven’t seen anything like it in all of history. I know I’m benefiting from it!