Time Magazine Person Of The Year? You

"Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.

Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you." - Time

Cool. Nobody ever nominated me for anything before. Suddenly I'm on the cover of Time, as the Person of the Year? I told my mom blogging outta the basement was gonna be a sure hit one day. And here we are. Time needs to be given kudos for being the first MSM mag to publicly acknowledge, without a snide reference, the growing importance of blogging and new media.

And pretty slick marketing. Write this down. This one cover issue is going to ignite and re-ignite the debate about the importance of blogs and the Time article will be endlessly quoted and linked to, by both the MSM and by the blogs. It'll probably end up as Time's most famous selection, ever. Sheer marketing genius.

Update: Google news now has 387 news links writing about this. So far. Here's the few choice selections:
Time's Person Of 2006: "You" As In YouTube ( Playfuls.com )
You're on the cover of Time! ( CNN-IBN )
TIME'S 2006 'PERSON' BLOGS ON ( NY Post )
You ought to be congratulated ( The Age )
Do-it-yourself heroes ( Melbourne Herald Sun )
Person of year? Look in mirror ( Chicago Sun-Times )

And while I have no idea what Steve Young is babbling about, it's still more fodder for the Time publicity machine.