Book votes man as book of the year

Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos was yesterday named Time magazine's Person of the Year. At 35, the Internet shopping guru is one of the youngest people ever to grab the title – putting him in the company of royalty and revolutionaries. After four years, Amazon.com is worth an estimated £13 billion – more than the combined value of its two biggest competitors Barnes & Noble and Borders. And Bezos' own fortune is said to have already hit the £4 billion mark. The company, which started as an online bookshop but now stocks everything from home improvement to toys, expects sales of £5 billion this year. It has 13.1 million customers and 2,100 staff, but has yet to make a profit. Time managing editor Walter Isaacson said: "Bezos is a person who not only changed the way we do things, but helped pave the way for the future. "E-commerce has been around for four or five years, but 1999 was a time in which e-commerce and dotcom mania reached a peak and really affected all of us," Metro newspaper reported. Bezos said the award was "an incredible and humbling honour". Bezos is the fourth youngest person to be named Time Person of the Year, after Charles Lindbergh, 25 in 1927, Queen Elizabeth II, 26 in 1952, and Martin Luther King, 34 in 1963. ® Related stories: Round one to Amazon in Click-1 fight Outage hits Amazon sites Amazon.com sues Amazon.gr