The 50 Most Important People on the Web

[aryayush]

The 50 Most Important People on the Web
Here's who's shaping what you read, watch, hear, write, buy, sell, befriend, flame, and otherwise do online.
Christopher Null, PC World
Monday, March 05, 2007 01:00 AM PST

Important People #1 through #5

1. Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin
Executives, Google


Photograph: Courtesy of Google

When your stock price can top $500 a share, you're collectively worth $33 billion in cash, and you run the most trafficked search engine on the Internet, you can afford to do, well, pretty much whatever you want. Sergey Brin and Larry Page's little project from Stanford has grown into the Web's most talked-about powerhouse, and one of the few names on this list to have morphed into a verb. Schmidt left Novell to join the board of directors at Google in 2001 and soon became the company's CEO. Having conquered the online advertising world, Google seems to be gearing up for an acquisition spree, its headline-grabbing purchase of YouTube marking a big step toward complete domination of the Web.


2. Steve Jobs
CEO, Apple


Photograph: Courtesy of Apple

No doubt you're sick of the media bonanza surrounding the every move of Apple's CEO, but when one man's appeal for DRM-free music reverberates around the world, it's hard to ignore the power he wields. Jobs popularized legal music downloads and legal TV and movie downloads. And though the iPhone won't be released for five months, its demonstration at Macworld Expo suggested that this product might finally popularize Internet browsing on a mobile device.


3. Bram Cohen
Cofounder, BitTorrent


Photograph: Courtesy of BitTorrent

P2P systems like KaZaA and eDonkey are so last year. The future is all about BitTorrent, the brainchild of math wizard and programming wunderkind Bram Cohen. BitTorrent, developed in 2001, has gained in popularity as a way to download large files (like movies) by sharing the burden across hardware and bandwidth. The technology's adeptness at handling large files got Cohen in trouble with the Motion Picture Association of America, which ordered BitTorrent to remove copyrighted content from its network. But that setback hasn't slowed it down. Reportedly, more than a third of all Web traffic now comes from BitTorrent clients. BitTorrent and the entertainment heavyweights have since joined forces. The newly released BitTorrent Entertainment Network launched recently with thousands of industry-approved movies, television shows, games, and songs for sale and rental.


4. Mike Morhaime
President, Blizzard Entertainment


Photograph: Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

In the world of online gaming, there is World of Warcraft and there is everything else. With 8 million players worldwide, Blizzard earns about $1.5 billion a year on WoW. And each player is breathlessly beholden to Mike Morhaime for the chance--if it ever comes--to obtain that Blade of Eternal Justice. As with Second Life (see #17), entire real-world businesses are based around the game. Unlike Second Life, though, these businesses--which exploit the WoW economy and gameplay--are not entirely welcome.


5. Jimmy Wales
Founder, Wikipedia


Photograph: Andrew Lih

Many onliners treat Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia as their first and last stop in researching a topic; and its user generated content has become so reliable that Nature magazine declared it "close to [Encyclopaedia] Britannica" in accuracy. The site has been cited as a source of information in more than 100 U.S. court decisions since 2004. But its popularity has also made Wikipedia a target for spammers--so much so that Wikipedia temporarily blocked the entire country of Qatar from making edits. To thwart spammers, Wales decided to slap "nofollow" tags on external links, telling search engines to ignore the links in order to avoid artificially inflating the search engine ranking of the link targets. This strategy ensures that Wikipedia's prominence in search results will continue to grow. But Wikipedia may just be the beginning for Wales. He recently launched his own search engine, WikiSeek, which searches only sites mentioned in Wikipedia.

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[Pathik]

lol.. i know the only reason u posted this thing was the 2nd person...
neways reps away..

[jack// ani]

^^you mean for Steve Jobs??

[aryayush]

Yes, he does and he couldn't be more right.

Thanks for the reps, pathiks!

[kalpik]

Very nice and informative post.. Thanks!

[shashank4u]

thanx mac lover ..
reps for u .

[dd_wingrider]

thx gud info, deserve reps

it said
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to aryayush again.

[24online]

where is Orkut Founder ??? they did not do proper survey... they just add US based companies ppl photos... not world-wide ppl`s photos...

[aryayush]

Thanks a lot for the reps to kalpik, shashank4u, dd_wingrider and the anonymous repper!
dd_wingrider, it is the intention that counts, mate - reps do not. Thanks for the appreciation!

[luckypayal]

nice information thanx

[aryayush]

You're welcome!

Thanks to the anonymous repper!

[shantanu]

I think Mr. gates should be on first place isnt it

[aryayush]

Uh... it is about important people on the web.

Mr. Bill Gates is quite a personality in the real world. That kind of recognition is sort of bundled with being the richest man in the world!

But he doesn't have much of a voice on the internet.

[Pathik]

yea... Bill gates doesnt hav as good a web presence like larry/sergey or steve jobs...

[tarey_g]

where is Orkut Founder ??? they did not do proper survey... they just add US based companies ppl photos... not world-wide ppl`s photos...

Orkut is th biggest bull crap on the internet, no way it can make in the top 50 in any of the many such lists.This one is by pc world.

[shantanu]

I think that Sir William Henry Gates III is the best technology master on WEb. He only made windows. Even M$ is the best presence i think... rest your oWN thoughts..

[aryayush]

Microsoft is not a person.

[shantanu]

I think that Sir William Henry Gates III is the best technology master on WEb. He only made windows. Even M$ is the best presence i think... rest your oWN thoughts..

i also said about Sir William Henry Gates III (M$) hehe

[joey_182]

and they forgot me again......
)

[aryayush]

[Third Eye]

Nice post!
Reps added

[aryayush]

He! He! Thanks, buddy!

[ax3]

nice 1 ..........

[ssdivisiongermany1933]

where is shabbir bhatia ??

[nepcker]

I only like the first two winners (Google executives + Apple CEO)

[PrinceHeart]

Oh well.. guess im 51st - I can live with that

[aryayush]

LOL!
__________
Thanks to goobimama for the rep!

[crystal_pup]

Nice to read abt such influential ppl...

Cheers,
Kunal