It's easy to give away money easily come by...Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher

We wuz robbed! I hope no Redmond gold was used to influence the Time magazine cover of Bill G and Melinda, and bizarrely, standing in-between them, Bono?

I hope Waggoner Edstrom--MSFT's PR firm--wasn't involved in influencing Time magazine. And that the PR company did not create mock-ups of Time magazine covers, (which is its usual practice to focus the minds of the Wag Ed troops on PR goals.)

Philanthropy is wonderful, but it's easy to do when the gold was acquired through illegal monopolistic practices. Isn't that what the courts said MSFT did?

The humble blogger, and the not so humble blogger, probably gave zilch to any charity this year, but, they should have been on the cover of Time. Surely, no other persons have had more effect on the global consciousness?

Blogging is people power at its best, and it should be celebrated, not the largesse of the rich.

Plus, blogging represents the Next Big Thing. It has ALL the characteristics of the Next Big Thing (don't be distracted by the sometimes wacky content.)

Another reason Time should have chosen a blogger: 2005 is the Chinese year of the Rooster. And the Rooster is a perfect metaphor for the blogger.

Last year was the year of the Monkey, and in the Chinese culture there are four monkeys, compared with our Western tradition of three monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The fourth monkey is: do no evil.

Interestingly, Google IPO'd in the Year of the Monkey, GOOG has a motto: do no evil.

We are coming to the end of the year of the Rooster/the year of the blogger. And if I had enough money to influence things, I would have put a blogger on the cover of Time.

2006 is the year of the Dog. What will that represent? Packs of new rules enterprises tearing apart the lumbering old world enterprises, imho.