Who rules the Internet?

PC World has just released its ranking of the 50 most influential people on the Internet—the people who are “shaping what you read, watch, hear, write, buy, sell, befriend, flame, and otherwise do online.” Some highlights: 1: Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Executives, Google 2: Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple, Inc. 3: Bram Cohen, Cofounder, ...

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PC World has just released its ranking of the 50 most influential people on the Internet—the people who are “shaping what you read, watch, hear, write, buy, sell, befriend, flame, and otherwise do online.” Some highlights:

  • 1: Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Executives, Google
  • 2: Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple, Inc.
  • 3: Bram Cohen, Cofounder, BitTorrent
  • 4: Mike Morhaime, President, Blizzard Entertainment (makers of the hugely popular World of Warcraft game)
  • 5: Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia
  • 6: Craig Newmark, Founder, Craigslist:

    His Web site has no ads, charges absurdly low fees to a small fraction of its visitors, has a “.org” domain, and employs 23 people. Yet despite its humble appearance, Craigslist racked up 14.1 million page views last December and was the 52nd most viewed site last December according to comScore Media Metrix … Most importantly, it has almost singlehandedly demolished the offline classified advertising business.

  • 10: Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, Founders, YouTube
  • 13: Henry Chon, CEO, Cyworld:

    Don’t call Cyworld a Korean MySpace; MySpace is an American Cyworld. In South Korea, an estimated 25 percent of the population (and 90 percent of people in their teens and twenties) have Cyworld accounts, where individuals design miniature animated avatars to represent them in its unique online space. In 2006 CEO Henry Chon brought Cyworld to U.S. shores. Though Cyworld hasn’t yet achieved comparable success here, MySpace shouldn’t rest easy if Chon’s track record is any indication of future competition.

  • 20: Jack Ma, COO, Alibaba.com:

    Want to do business in China without springing for a plane ticket to Shanghai? Alibaba.com is your best bet. Founded by Jack Ma in 1999, this massively successful business-to-business e-marketplace is the best place online to meet people and trade proposals and product offers.

Prerna Mankad is a researcher at Foreign Policy.

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