User-generated content on websites such as YouTube has proved the latest twist in the Internet revolution, with the site attracting millions of users and earning its founders 1.65 billion dollars when it was bought by Google earlier this year.

Other websites such as Flickr, MySpace and Wikipedia are prime examples of user-generated content, allowing ordinary people to upload online content, rather than relying on media professionals, as traditional websites have done.

"We're making magazine history by putting out a cover like this," said Time's managing editor, Richard Stengel. "It's absolutely very forward looking," he added.

"People will look at that in years from now and say 'wow, they were onto something and the world is different now'."

Time describes its person of the year not necessarily as an honour, but as "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year."

The award is ultimately decided by the magazine's managing editor. Stengel said in an interview with CNN ahead of the announcement: "You're looking for someone who's a symbol."

Chinese President Hu Jintao was identified as a runner up along with Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Previous winners include Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and the computer. In 2005, U2 frontman turned anti-poverty campaigner Bono shared the award with Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife Melinda.

US President George W. Bush was chosen in 2004, following the American soldier in 2003 and a group of whistleblowers in 2002.

The first winner named after the September 11 attacks of 2001 was former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, despite suggestions from within Time's editorial department it should be Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini won the award in 1979, the year he helped lead the revolution that toppled the Shah. The controversial choice lost the magazine an undisclosed number of subscribers.

Agence France-Presse