It’s official – the Time magazine Person of the Year for 2006 is “YOU”!!! In a world where stories of war, political intrigue and natural disasters have dominated the news, Time magazine has chosen a different perspective for 2006…

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.

Supporting this view of an online world where community and collaboration is occurring is the Guardian’s list of The new 100 most useful sites. (Thanks Douglas for the pointer). Their list shows a dramatic change in emphasis, with a proliferation of social networking technologies, usefully categorised. The one category that is missing, they note, is mobile technologies, but hte list authors see this as a possible addition in 2007.

And from the Online Education Database is a list of their Top 100 Education Blogs. These were selected from the 5000-odd blogs that are tracked through Technorati. I’m not sure about the categorisation they’ve used, but there are some really useful blogs to check out here! (Including yours truly – see under the “Technology” category!)