The best line I’ve read about Time magazine’s choice of all of us as the Person of the Year comes from Pop Sugar:

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?

Fortunately, a very large number of people do, and that’s why Time‘s recognition is apropos. New media has given millions of people a voice to share that energy and passion with others. Maybe not a lot of others, but even if only a few people listen to what they say, that’s enough.

Critics are trashing Time‘s choice as a wimp cop-out, a pander to advertisers. I think it’s a master stroke. What other story was this big this year? The quagmire in Iraq? The Democrats’ victory in the election? The earthquake in Hawaii? Fifty years from now, no one will remember these things, but 50 years from now the world will be a very different place because of what happened on YouTube, MySpace and thousands of other online meeting places that barely existed a year ago.

It was 25 years ago that Time named the personal computer Machine of the Year. That was a pretty prophetic choice. This is no less visionary.

In a recent Tech Nation interview, author Steven Levy told host Moira Gunn that he was fortunate to be covering the Internet because it’s the biggest story of our generation. I think he made a good point. The global revolution in information discovery and dissemination will change our future fundamentally. It will touch every institution in our society. And now each of us can play a part in it. What bigger story is there than that?