Time Meant "Us", Not "You"

Time made a big splash (and caused a few rolled eyeballs) when they named “You”, the citizens of Web 2.0, as the Person of the Year for 2006 a few weeks ago. But amidst all the congratulations and second-guessing in the blogosphere, one critical point was overlooked:

They should have said “us”.

Because the distinction between Time and the rest of us who blog is imaginary — Time’s writers are bloggers too. And they’ve got a whole bunch of real, honest-to-goodness TypePad blogs, not just some token cobweb-covered corner of their website that’s called a blog. They’re complete with RSS feeds, comments from the community, and tons and tons of regular updates.

From Andrew Sullivan to Ana Marie Cox to countless other stalwarts of the newsmagazine’s writing staff, Time is doing the right thing on the web. And it’s all capped off with The Ag, accurately described as “a concise summary of the day’s most important news stories”. As someone who’s read Time my entire life, this is exactly what I wanted the magazine to be doing online, even back when (as old-school web nerds might recall) they were wandering around with efforts like Pathfinder.

As we pointed out when The New York Times redesigned, the influence of blogs on conventional media is unmistakeable. Now, with the relaunch of Time’s site, the influence is explicit. Managing Editor Richard Stengler describes A Changing Time:

Starting on Jan. 8, you will see a different TIME.com We’ve given the site a long-overdue face-lift, and you will find a sharp, dynamic, constantly updated news site within a new but familiar red border. You’ll see more space to show off our world-class photography, our superb writers and columnists, and now you can start your day by checking our news blog, The Ag, which smartly aggregates and summarizes the most important stories from daily newspapers and blogs around the world. This issue contains some new sections and departments that reflect our determination to bring you a regular roster of voices and experts on the most vital ideas and subjects under the sun. We are inaugurating a regular history section, which will put today’s news in the context of relevant historical events.

This is the ideal of traditional media companies embracing blogs: Honoring the human voice, personality, and interactivity that typify the new medium, while offering valuable perspectives like historical context and resource-intensive research based on a long-standing tradition of journalism.

So, Time, the next time you want to recognize the world of bloggers and people creating personal media, don’t be afraid to include yourselves in the mix. It’s not “You”, it’s us.