Who Exactly is Person of the Year?

David Schatsky | December 18, 2006, 12:24 PM

Time magazine selected you person of the year in recognition of the impact consumer-created content is having online. There's no question that this phenomenon is defining and challenging online strategies today.

The magazine sees

a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

But it's worth noting that this is far from a mass phenomenon. While MySpace and YouTube appear to be sucking up large amounts of the time of some consumers, and 2006 is the year when Internet addiction (a kind of social disease that accompanied the rise of social media) hit the news (again), the reality is that the "you" Time is recognizing this year is not all of us, or even a majority of us. Time asks,

Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

Who are they? From what we can tell, they are a relatively small part of the online population that does have the time, motivation and energy to participate in new arenas, from volunteers editing encycopedia entries, to consumers rating merchants or movies, to home-movie makers and sharers, to bloggers.

Emily Riley, who covers social media and marketing for us at Jupiter identified a core group of consumers she called "new influentials," consumers inclined to broadcast their opinions via social networking sites and other online forums. According to her analysis, just 17% of the online population fits into that category. If you look at specific sharing or participation activities online, fewer than 10% of the online population, according to a recent Jupiter consumer survey, blog or create their own web page or share music, movies or photos.

So the folks behind this online revolution, and it's not too strong a word, are a small minority. But they are having a big impact online. And that is one of the most impressive aspects of the Internet: small groups of people can have big impacts online and ultimately offline. That is why, though the vast majority of ad dollars will continue to be spent off-offline, the Internet is remaking the world media & advertising; why, though the vast majority of retail dollars will continue to be spent offline, the Internet is remaking retail, and on and on across the consumer-facing industries.

In each case, the online numbers may look small in the scheme of things, but the impact is large.

Congratulations, you.