News item: Time magazine has selected “You” as 2006’s Person of the Year. Time based its decision on consumers’ embrace of self-generated Internet content, such as blogs, video-sharing service YouTube, and social networks such as MySpace and Friendster.

Well, good for You! And good for Time magazine for realizing what direct marketers have known for years: You is the center of the universe, and most successful outreach efforts reaffirm that.

Indeed, DMers’ stock-in-trade is paying attention to You — personalizing solicitations with You’s name, compiling and analyzing data on You and designing both messages and products that reflects You’s preferences. Without You, DMers would be left sitting alone in their call centers, resting their feet on stacks of envelopes, without any idea of whom to contact.

Now, not to take anything away from You’s award, but it does seem to have been a light year. According to Time, other contenders for the honor included China’s President Hu Jintao, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and North Korean Dear Leader Kim Jong-il. You was really quite clever in how You took advantage of the split in the pro-totalitarian-leader vote to slip in and win.

A cynic might say that Time made the choice just to sell 6 billion plus copies of its current issue, a sales figure that would certainly challenge for the top-selling single magazine issue of all time. (It probably won’t be number one, however: Even You has to take a back seat to tell-all magazines that cover Britney and Kevin and Tom and Katie. Few individuals present a stronger draw than celebrities gone wrong — even You.)

But I maintain that choosing You as Time’s Person of the Year was a no-lose choice — almost. The one group truly annoyed over You being selected is those folks who print customized novelty magazine covers.

As a novelty magazine cover industry representative might say, “Now that You has your own Time ‘Person of the Year’ cover, we can’t offer that any more. We can only hope Sports Illustrated doesn’t name You ‘Sportsperson of the Year’, or we’ll lose that market, too.”

Of course, the folks at Chrysler might be a bit put out as well. The automobile manufacturer sponsored Time’s online coverage of You with a lead-in advertisement for its Sebring line. Alas, Chrysler was not told in advance of Time’s decision, and as of Saturday the tag line You saw when clicking through was “You might not be the Person of the Year, but You can drive like you are.”

Poor Chrysler. Six billion potential candidates, and Time chose You. What are the odds?

A final question lingers, however… since You is the Time magazine Person of the Year, who’s left to thank?

If You wants to respond to this column, please contact [email protected] (me).

News item: Time magazine has selected