Time Magazine Taps Twitter to Help Pick Person of the Year

Since 1927, Time magazine has celebrated the accomplishments of one extraordinary individual with its Person of the Year award. This time around though, Time is looking to crowdsource its selection by tapping into Twitter’s real-time feed of Tweets to better assess the pulse of the people.

Poptip

Time is using an app called Poptip to gather Tweets and suggestions from readers using the hashtag #TIMEPOY. People have until midnight on December 4 to tweet their suggestions. According to Mashable, the Person of the Year will not be selected based on aggregate Tweet data but rather independently selected by the editors at Time, albeit with a few suggestions from Twitter.

Poptip helps businesses generate viral content by providing a look at current trends and public opinion.

Time will announce the Person of the Year on NBC’s Today Show on December 11. Ahead of the announcement Time is also expected to release a few entertaining Vine videos of the main contenders in action and feature a few animated fan posts in Time itself.

Last year’s POY award went to Barack Obama. Who do you think should be selected this time around?