Not to be callous, but no matter how tragic one war crime is, it doesn't rise to anywhere near the level of either the more recent Wikileaks data or, well, a lot of other news events from the year. That is to say, if the Baghdad air-strike video was the only thing Wikileaks did this year, than you wouldn't think Assange should be person of the year.

It apparently also doesn't surpass a website which lets people throw sheep at each other.

if if if...

I think you're being unreasonably dismissive of a valid point: preparing a person of the year issue takes a considerable amount of time, and Assange's most noteworthy act of the year happened relatively late.

It's true, that did make the news, but it was more of a footnote. Nobody really cared until December.

In my perception the wikileaks of iraq / afghanistan / cablegate got far more tv-news exposure throughout the year than facebook did. It is true that wikileaks itself became only an issue until nov/dec, but its leaks before that had high news value.