Mmm, they're hunky

Who were the good guys and who were the bad guys in business and economics in 2010? James Moore is your guide to <i>The Independent's</i> halls of fame, and shame

In the rest of the world he's a precocious mogul and Time magazine's person of the year; in China, though, Mark Zuckerberg is almost unknown. Now, after pictures of him visiting Beijing's biggest internet company have appeared online, feverish speculation has erupted over whether he could be set to change that by taking his social networking site, Facebook, into the one country that has resisted its charms.

Time magazine has named its 2010 "Person of the Year" – the individual judged by the editors to have most influenced the world over the past 12 months. Despite its readers having voted for Julian Assange by an overwhelming majority, Time's editors chose Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, calling him "The Connector" – "for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives".

Shocked and thrilled by Gaga's theatre of excess

Mark Zuckerberg edges out Julian Assange, the Tea Party and the Chilean miners to become Time Magazine's face of 2010.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been named Time magazine's "Person of the Year".

A court settlement of $65m (£41m) would put an end to most disputes, but not when it stacks two of the most aggrieved men in corporate history against their sworn enemy, the billionaire founder of Facebook.

Julian Assange took advantage of a loner

First blood in the long battle that will end at the Oscars in late February was drawn by the film The Social Network, which picked up the lion's share of honours at the opening event of the Hollywood awards "season".

One of them sometimes gets called the most powerful man in the world; the other is George W Bush. The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has broken bread with the retired President of the US, revealing that despite their 40-year age gap and divergent political backgrounds, the duo have more in common than you might expect.

While recent graduates everywhere are busy panicking about their lack of job opportunities, 24-year-old Josh Magidson is feeling pretty smug. After all, Londoner Josh has just sold the website he set up at university to the e-commerce giant Just Eat for £500,000.

Mark Zuckerberg may not yet earn anything from his invention, but for a shadowy group of investors it's a goldmine

As web giants fight over top geek talent, bonuses are booming. Guy Adams reports