Would you pick Mark Zuckerberg as Person of the Year?

The editors of Time magazine have done just that. But is he worthy?

Time readers chose WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange; Time editors put him as fourth runner up. Facebook CEO Zuckerberg ranked 10th among Time readers. It's a question I pose to Betanews readers: Would you chose Zuckerberg, or someone else, as Person of the Year?

Sure this isn't the kind of topic Betanews typically covers, but Zuckerberg is a geek, programmer, entrepreneur and cofounder of one of the most globally influential products ever -- all in just four-and-a-half years (I count from when Facebook opened to the public in 2006, not to Harvard students in 2004). I pose the question to you and ask for response in comments. Please, let's have some gingerly and feisty but civil debate.

I won't argue with influence. With over 500 million users, up from an already impressive 30 million in Q1 2007, Facebook is a hugely successfully service. Time editors write:

For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME's 2010 Person of the Year.

Zuckerberg has defied detractors. All Things Digital's Kara Swisher once called him the "toddler CEO." In a recent 60 Minutes interview she recanted, saying that the child turn out to be a "prodigy." Zuckerberg defied takeover bids, with AOL, Google and Microsoft among would-be buyers.

Zuckerberg instead negotiated a Microsoft investment, $240 million, in October 2007. Pundits and Wall Street analysts criticized the investment, which looks smart today. Zuckerberg also resisted calls to open up the service to the Wild Wild Web, but held tight-fisted onto his property, granting limited access where Facebook benefitted. Facebook's new messaging service, which launched last month, may be the greatest coup of all. All the while, he navigated ongoing criticism about privacy. Zuckerberg held his ground and stuck to the vision.

Facebook's CEO reminds me of young Bill Gates. Both men launched globally-influential companies. They're cunning and competitive programmers with shrewd business sense, questionable social skills (about the same age) and tenacious drive. Microsoft built an operating system for PCs, while Facebook is an operating system in the cloud. Developers write applications for both. Both men benefitted from timing -- Gates the shift from mainframes to PCs and Zuckerberg cloud-connected social sharing.

Does any of this make Zuckerberg worthy to be Time's Person of the Year 2010? Is there someone else you would choose. These are questions for you to answer in comments.