Hurray for us!

I'd like to say I am among those chosen by Time Magazine as person of the year, and as an Internet user and contributor, I probably qualify. But what I do is journalism, and while the Internet has dramatically changed the nature of my job and how I work, the drama has not yet extended to blogging, posting personal videos on YouTube, creating a MySpace page or even opening an eBay store.

So when they gather all 6.5 billion of us award winners together for our group photo, I'll stand at the back with the other old farts, where we can swap stories about manual typewriters, hand-written letters and mimeograph machines.

What Time's editors are taking note of, however, is the global community that the Internet has enabled us to become, in a very real way. The level of contribution and collaboration that goes on daily should be mind-boggling, if we weren't already taking it for granted.

Going forward, however, what may become mind-boggling is the amount of content of all types that the Internet provides. What we will all need is a better way to see what we want and need to see and filter out the rest, and have that happen in real-time. As service providers look to incorporate Web-based content into their IPTV offerings, I hope they can develop and provide the kind of tools that will make us all not just generators of Internet material but wiser consumers as well.