Facebook Founder Zuckerberg Named Time Person of Year

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook Inc., was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” today for “creating a new system of exchanging information” and “changing how we all live our lives.”

Zuckerberg, 26, began the world’s largest social-networking site in 2004. The service, with more than 500 million users, has helped people connect with each other and changed definitions of privacy, Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel said in a letter on the magazine’s website.

Zuckerberg created Facebook for college students when he was a sophomore at Harvard University. Eventually opening the site up to users outside of higher education, the company surpassed News Corp.’s MySpace as the world’s biggest social network two years ago.

“There is an erosion of trust in authority, a decentralizing of power and at the same time, perhaps, a greater faith in one another,” Stengel said. “More than anyone else on the world stage, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is at the center of those changes.”

Zuckerberg is tied for No. 35 on the 2010 list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, according to the Forbes ranking. His wealth jumped 245 percent to $6.9 billion, the largest percentage increase on the annual list, the magazine said.

He is a year older than Time’s first person of the year, Charles Lindbergh, the aviator who made the first solo trans- Atlantic flight. Time, owned by Time Warner Inc., started the annual selection in 1927.

Other finalists for the accolade were Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, talk-show commentator Glenn Beck, singer Lady Gaga, and Apple Inc. founder Steve Jobs.

Last year’s winner was Ben Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve. The magazine selected President Obama in 2008. Previous winners include former President Bill Clinton, Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, China’s Deng Xiaoping and, in 1982, the Computer.