Mahatma Ghandi, Winston Churchill, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg all have at least one thing in common: they’ve all been named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year. The influential magazine’s annual special profiles a person, group, idea or object that “for better or for worse, …has done the most to influence the events of the year.” And this year, you’ll be able to cast your vote using Twitter.
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In an official blog post, Twitter’s Andrew Fitzgerald explains that while the choice is ultimately made by TIME editors, the magazine will gather votes on Twitter, where readers can weigh in on who made the biggest impact in 2013 via tweets.
“This will give everyone who’s interested an unprecedented chance to air their opinion and cast a vote before the final decision,” he says.
The magazine and social network will collate the votes using Poptip, a platform that enables companies to more easily monitor conversations on social media.
Here’s how to submit your choice: tweet the name you think TIME should choose along with #TIMEPOY. Your choice will be tracked on Time.com. Poptip will gather tweets that include #TIMEPOY and tweets that are replies to @TIME’s callout for #TIMEPOY to fully capture the conversation. The Poptip technology registers votes even for misspelled names.
TIME will also share Vine videos of celebrities, politicians and influencers about their choices. You can submit your own Vine using #TIMEPOY; they will be featured on Time.com.
Managing editor Nancy Gibbs will announce the Person of the Year on NBC’s TODAY show on Wednesday, December 11, followed immediately by a tweet from @TIME.
Submissions close at midnight US Eastern Time on 4 December. It’s likely that the magazine will be hoping that engaging Twitter produces a more serious result than when the users of 4Chan gamed the online voting system in 2009 so that the messaging platform’s founder ended up topping the reader’s poll.
Image: AK Rockefeller .
