If you haven't already read our fifth pick for Persons of the Year, be sure to check it out.

In addition, we continue to invite you to submit your votes for the Readers' Choice Award. Voting closes next Tuesday.

Now on to our fourth pick...

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Our next award goes to Aaron Greenberg (on behalf of the entire Xbox Live team).

As the Group Product Manager for the Xbox Live service, Greenberg has overseen tremendous growth for Microsoft's popular online network. With more than eight million members, an online feature set that has been matched by no other console, a plethora of Arcade games and a whole portfolio of downloadable movies and TV shows, the Xbox 360's online service continues to separate itself from the pack.

Greenberg may not be as visible as Peter Moore was in his time at Microsoft, but he's played a very important role in driving the Xbox business forward nonetheless. As an original member of the Xbox planning and launch team, he's been with the Xbox group from the start and has for the last seven years helped spread the word about Xbox while focusing on making Xbox the undisputed leader when it comes to online gaming and services.

The growth of Xbox Live has been truly incredible. Back in July 2005, the service doubled its members from one million to two million, and with Xbox Live's fifth anniversary now behind us, another six million people have joined in just a bit over two years.

If there's one key differentiator between this generation of consoles and the last, it's unquestionably the impact of online. The leap from 2-D graphics to 3-D worlds may have been more profound, but the pervasiveness and constant connectivity of an online console has opened the door for all sorts of possibilities that game makers and publishers never had before: online gaming, online socializing, user created content/sharing, downloadable games and game content, instant access to trailers and demos, dynamic advertising and even some free, ad-supported games.

Not only has this benefited gamers, but it's completely changed the way marketers go about creating campaigns. A solid game demo or trailer on Xbox Live can be one of the best ways to spread the word about an upcoming title, and it can be a great way to spark word of mouth advertising amongst the very crowd marketers are targeting.

Xbox Live has also been a positive for the industry by allowing small independent developers to bypass retail and reach the Xbox gaming community via digital distribution and with the help of development tools such as XNA or GarageGames' Torque. In an age where most traditional games cost anywhere from $10 million to $30 million to produce, this is a welcome avenue for the indie scene.

If we had to single out two reasons for Xbox Live's success, however, they would be 1) The fact that Xbox 360 seems to be designed around Xbox Live, putting the service at its core, rather than being tacked on; and 2) Microsoft's ability to continually improve the service and its offerings with dashboard updates and more content partners every year.

So to Aaron and his entire Xbox Live team, congratulations!

When notified by GameDaily BIZ of this honor, Greenberg provided us with the following statement:

"Wow, this is a great honor that frankly belongs in the hands of the entire Xbox LIVE team. Never in my professional career have I met a team with such a high commitment to quality-- so dedicated and so passionate about what they do. Since we launched the service more than five years ago, we've been working to create the best online gaming and entertainment network available, and we are honored to be recognized by GameDaily with this award.

There are too many names to mention here, but some key people that built the service into what it is today include: Ben Kilgore, Jerry Johnson, Scott Henson, Mei-mei Bong, J Allard, Boyd Multerer, Todd Roshak, Marc Whitten, Rohan Oommen, Jerry Hook, Eric Neustadter and Chris Pirich, to just name a few. Moving forward, we are all excited to see where John Schappert and the new LIVE leadership will be taking the service in the future.

We also want to recognize the amazing Xbox LIVE community, every single one of these 8 million members across 26 countries are key ingredients to what makes the service a success. We take our cues from this community and they are an important part of helping us improve the service, guiding us to where we go in the future.

We are very optimistic about the future of the service and the entire LIVE team is committed to continue to deliver and improve upon what we believe is the leading online gaming and entertainment service.

Thanks again for this award, and see you on Xbox LIVE! (Gamertag- BIGVIP)"