Twitter's creator and exec chairman Jack Dorsey has been recognised as The Media Person of the Year at the 59th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Dorsey, who will accept the award in person at the Press, Design, Radio and Cyber Lions awards ceremony on 20 June in the Palais des Festivals, sent his first tweet in March 2006, having been inspired by watching service industry operators send countless whereabouts messages to each other during the day.
Since that inaugural text "just setting up my twttr", more than 140 million people have joined Dorsey's message system worldwide, ranging from President Obama to Lord Sugar, via Joey Barton and Justin Bieber. More than 340 million Tweets are sent every day - providing information on everything from the Arab Spring to what Kim Kardashian had for breakfast.
Previous recipients of the Award, which recognises a figure influential in the development of today's media landscape, include Google's Eric Schmidt and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.
Dorsey is not the only prestigious person not usually connected with the world of film to grace the red carpet at Cannes this year.
President Bill Clinton will also be in town, speaking at the same festival on "how advertising can help build a better world".
Since leaving the White House in 2001, President Clinton has been travelling the world with his Foundation, raising money to improve global health and strengthen economies.