Congratulations!

Time says I am the person of the year.

And you too !

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's 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.

Some good insight from the InfluxInsight blog.

The problem is that Time isn't really talking about "You", instead, they're highlighting active contributors, or what some people call the One Per Centers; the people with time on their hands to write blogs, do sketch comedy on You Tube, write restaurant reviews, etc. It's an elite group of "creators" motivated by the quest for fame, attention and sometimes, a good old-fashioned desire to help people.

So when will this 1% increase?

For us in India this number to become 10%, some things need to happen:

• Cost of access needs to drop
• The mobile internet needs to take off.
• Translation tools, text to audio software to make content understandable to the vast majority needs to be invented or widely used.

According to the IMAI, internet users in India would touch 100 million in 2007. So even if 1% remain 'active contributors' we would still be talking about 1 million potential bloggers/YouTubers/podcasters from India. The possibilities are mind-blogging, er, I meant mind-boggling !