Time might have nominated you as the Person of the Year, but Gawker Media, the publisher of such popular blogs as Gizmodo, Lifehacker, and Kotaku, is savvier: The company is making you into a contributor -- if you're a commenter, that is.

Gawker owner Nick Denton stopped by the Wired News offices this afternoon and showed me his mini-media empire's newest feature, scheduled to debut early next week. On any Gawker blog, you'll be able to specify which commenters are your favorites. From then on, any time these friends post a comment, a note will appear on your version of the site's home page, mixed right into the stream of stories posted by official Gawker contributors. What's more, when your favorite commenters add someone to their list of favorites, you'll get a note. The system also lets Gawker insert notes about the most popular posts by traffic or number of comments, providing yet another way for readers to stay abreast of the hottest topics.

It's a bit like adding some of Facebook's features into the Gawker blogs, Denton told me.

What's particularly smart about this feature is that it allows the most popular, profilic commenters to turn into contributors themselves. Indeed, this is already happening, as some Gawker blogs' fans comment often enough (and cleverly or nastily enough) that they themselves already have fans. The new feature just makes it easier to keep tabs on your favorite sources of snark.

Needless to say, the bloggers here at Wired News are green with envy....