ESPOO, Finland – It’s not often you hear (or see) us banging our own drum but who would we be if we didn’t cheer lead our own chieftains – after all, there are only 25 people in Business Week’s “most influential people on the web” and this year one of those is our very own Anssi Vanjoki. Let’s hear it for the boy…
The Business Week 25 Most Influential People on the Web is decided by readers and staffers, who are all asked to contribute names to the list, the 25 most popular making the cut.
It was Anssi’s quest of moving from being a device manufacturer to a
provider of mobile Internet services that won him his place in the
list. According to BusinessWeek “Nokia will need all the determination
that the hard-driving Vanjoki, who hunts bear in his spare time, can
muster. It’s directly taking on Apple, Google, and Research in Motion.”
Here here. BusinessWeek dubbed Anssi “The Advocate”.
Others on the list included, rather predictably the Steves Jobs and
Ballmer alongside the likes of the Google Triumvirate (Brin, Page and
Schmidt) and Jeff Bezos, Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Yang.
What makes this list interesting though is that not all 25 are hard in
the tooth, well known names. Take Maria Thomas, for example, who three
years ago started Etsy.com, a site dedicated to buying and selling
homemade arts and crafts. Thomas is a relative unknown though she does have a background at Amazon.
So, take a look at the list and let us know who YOU think is missing.