Perhaps Mark Z has to be given some props – after all, Facebook is a little popular.  But is he deserving of the title ‘person of the year’? According to TIME, for sure. And they’ve got good reason: as well as being The Facebook Guy, Zuckerberg has been spending his time of late being philanthropic as hell, pledging $100 million to the Newark, NJ school system, and joining Giving Pledge, a Bill Gates and Warren Buffett joint urging America’s billionaires to give more.

That kind of sounds like a disease. Philanthropy, I mean.

Dave, I’ve got terminal osteo-philanthropy.

But is Zuckerberg really deserving of the title? TIME makes its criteria quite clear: it is the person who has most influenced culture and news in the past 365. Do you think that’s Zuckerberg?

What about Julian Assange? The guy more or less got his spank on this year, publishing enough confidential material to embarrass governments both hither and yon. Throw in some sexual assault accusations, cablegate, and Interpol’s most wanted list, and 2010 has totally been Assange’s year.

If I were to choose Zuckerberg, I’d have chosen him in, like… 2008, over Obama. Or maybe even 2007 over Putin. Or every year since Facebook’s birth.