Today, TIME launches a new partnership with Twitter around our annual selection of TIME’s Person of the Year.
Since the magazine proclaimed Charles Lindbergh 1927’s Man of the Year, after his historic trans-Atlantic flight, TIME has made an annual tradition of naming the person who, for good or for ill, has most affected the news and our lives in the past year. Over nine decades, the club has included presidents and prime ministers, scientists and soldiers, tyrants and tycoons.
The choice is made by TIME’s editors, but we’re always interested to hear who our readers think should bear the title. This year, using Poptip, TIME will include social media voting exclusively on Twitter. Users can vote by tweeting their choice with #TIMEPOY or on Time.com, where Poptip’s technology is recording, visualizing and analyzing results in real time. Poptip combines direct replies on Twitter, Tweets that include #TIMEPOY and Tweets that mention @TIME so that no matter where or how users cast their vote, their voices will be heard. This partnership also features the debut of Poptip’s new “tournament style” voting, which allows for multiple match-ups between possible #TIMEPOY candidates across multiple voting platforms. People who weigh in to any poll on Twitter or Time.com will have their votes pooled together.
Person of the Year voting through Poptip will also use Twitter’s newly released visual timeline, using a photo to prompt voters to share their opinion. The reader’s choice poll ends December 4 at 11:59 p.m. You can get in on the action here or on Twitter with #TIMEPOY.
TIME will also be incorporating Vines, Twitter’s 6-second video product, into its Person of the Year walk-up, with celebrities, politicians and other influential people weighing in on who they would choose. Readers can submit their own Vine videos using #TIMEPOY as well, and they will be collected on a RebelMouse page and featured on Time.com. Twitter will also tweet about #TIMEPOY from Twitter’s main accounts.
The announcement of the TIME Person of the Year will be made by TIME managing editor Nancy Gibbs on NBC’s Today Show on Wednesday, December 11, coinciding with the news breaking on Twitter from @TIME.
Don’t forget to cast your vote.