Today PCWorld.com published their list of 50 most important people on the web. When scrolling over the list, I could only wonder what they have been smoking at PCWorld. I can’t imagine there is any carpet left over anymore.
Over/Under rated
Of course everyone expects other names in such a sort of list, but IMHO there are some names no one can discuss. People such as Jeff Bezos (Amazon) at #24 and Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (Kazaa, Skype and Joost) at #15, indisputably are internet pioneers and revolutionaries. Everything they touch, everything they do changes worlds.
Bezos today is one of the most watched CEOs and even VCs. Not only did Amazon change economic structures worldwide, but today Amazon has become much more than just a book store. And S3 is one of the most wonderful platforms for developers online.
Zennström and Friis might not have been the first ones with P2P technology, but both Kazaa and Skype set new standards in their field. One might argue the real value of Skype and that Ebay paid too much for Skype, but surely Skype has changed much more than Cuban has ever done with Broadcast.com. I hope the person who decided to pay $5.06 billion for Broadcast.com has already been executed. If not for that fatal economical error, because Cuban now thinks he can ramble on and on and say nothing. Worse, people even read his ramblings. Who has ever allowed this guy to put his stamp on the online world? Luckily PCWorld hath spoketh and doesn’t find him influential.
What’s up with Jobs at #2? Why is Jobs at #2 and don’t I find Linus Torvalds in the list?
Torvalds is not influential? Imagine tomorrow he would decide to sell the Linux trademark or change the rights? That would be an earthquake.
Not someone who first left, and then came back because he was the cheapest Fisher Price nerd Guru who was available. Preaching his easy-to-use platform to geeks groupies. What would today’s Mac OS X be without Linus?
DRM? Who made DRM main stream? Exactly, the same person who now tries to save his auctions and preaches anti-DRM.
Out of Order
What’s up with all the newbies who just nipped online, admittedly have built something amazing, but have no track of durability yet?
Chad Hurley and Steve Chen (YouTube founders) at #10. See Cuban higher in this entry.
Matt Mullenweg (Wordpress) at #16. Akismet is great, Wordpress is acceptable but still has to prove it’s a lasting player. And not another Movable Type. But credit due where credit due, if everything works out well, Matt can become another Linus.
Robert Scoble (Podtech) at #25 (remark, that is immediately behind Jeff Bezos!). What/Who is Robert Scoble actually? Other than an overpaid blogger? If only I had that much of time to blog. Is Scoble really more influential than Dave Winer (#39)? No seriously, Winer already annoys the internet since Octobre 1994 on an almost daily base!
More HOAXes
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (DailyKos) at #23 (that is right above Bezos!) , PerezHilton (celebrity blogger) on #41, Nick Denton (Gawker) #45.
WTF???
Dearest PCWorld editors, please occasionally leave your hardware piles and get laid.
And stop smoking the carpet!
That’s all.
1 thought being smart ↓
1 Avitable // Mar 5, 2007 at 8:54 pm// View all comments by Avitable //
I see PCWorld as an Entertainment Weekly for the computer world - brainless and airy, but usually a fun read.