Time Magazine’s pitch of the year

So, Time Magazine decided the person of the year is you. Me. Us. The citizenry. With out digital cameras and our blogs and our mobile phone cameras and our YouTube accounts and our podcasts.

Well, woop-de-doo. So citizen media is having an impact.

Who actually reads Time Magazine anymore? Other than noting the Person Of the Year, does the bulk of the populace pay it any attention these days? Doesn’t Time-Life make more money selling old TV shows on DVD?

As Darren Prowse says, what Time have done is to be the linkbaiter of the year. This is just MSM trying to cash-in on Web 2.0 by pouring praise on it.

What’s gone from Man Of The Year, to Group Of The Year (numerous scientists in 1960, and the entire babyboomer generation in 1966) to Person Of The Year (switched in 1999, so hardly in the forefront of sexual equality, even though Wallis Simpson was awarded Man Of The Year in 1936), to Thing Of The Year (The Computer in 1982) is not a reward or an honour (hello: Adolf Hitler 1938, Ayatollah Khomeini 1979).

It’s not really a prize. It’s just a way of selling more magazines.