Time Person of the Year: Who Should Have Won?

Mark Zuckerberg has been named Time Magazine Person of the Year. Who do you think should have won? Take our poll to see what 'TheStreet' thinks.
By Theresa McCabe ,

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) --

Facebook

founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been named Time Magazine's Person of the Year.

The world's youngest billionaire received the honor over a list of other candidates offered up by

Time

, such as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, NBA star LeBron James,

Apple

(AAPL) - Get Report

CEO Steve Jobs and Afghanistan leader Hamid Karzai.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

In the face of mounting online privacy concerns, the social network continued to gain popularity in 2010. In July, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook had surpassed the 500 million member mark.

"This is an important milestone for all of you who have helped spread Facebook around the world," Zuckerberg posted to the official Facebook blog. "Now a lot more people have the opportunity to stay connected with the people they care about."

The 26-year-old entrepreneur launched the Web site in February 2004 with a few of his fellow students at Harvard. At first, membership was limited to Harvard students, but soon allowed students at several colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League and Stanford University, to sign up. Today, any user who says they are at least 13 years old can register on Facebook.

Zuckerberg is worth an estimated $6.9 billion and was ranked No. 35 on Forbes 400 list of richest Americans this year.

In September, Zuckerberg appeared as a guest on

The Oprah Winfrey Show

to announce his

$100 million contribution to Newark public schools

. The donation, perhaps not coincidentally, came on the same day of the premiere of

The Social Network

, a movie about the founding of Facebook that depicted Zuckerberg in a poor light.

>>'Social Network' - Humanizing Zuckerberg

In an interview with

Mashable

, Zuckerberg revealed that he wasn't afraid of the potential bad press that he would receive as a result of the film. "We build products that 500 million people see," he was quoted saying. "If 5 million people see a movie, it doesn't really matter that much."

Still, while

Time Magazine

may have been impressed by Zuckerberg's resume, Time.com users were not. In a poll conducted on the website, voters found 9 public figures more qualified for the title of 'Person of the Year.'

Julian Assange topped that list

with 382,024 votes, followed by the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan with 233,639 votes. Pop singer Lady Gaga came in third, followed by Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Glenn Beck. Zuckerberg trailed far behind in tenth place.

Now

TheStreet

wants to know who

you

think should have won Time Person of the Year. Feel free to submit your write-in votes in a comment below.

--Written by Theresa McCabe in Boston.

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Theresa McCabe

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@TheresaMcCabe

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Disclosure: TheStreet's editorial policy prohibits staff editors and reporters from holding positions in any individual stocks.

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