It's been a memorable year for Facebook. In July, the site surpassed 500 million registered users. In October, the story of the company's creation comes to the big screen in the form of David Fincher's feature film, "The Social Network." And now, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been named the most influential leader of the information age.
The 26-year-old wunderkind tops Vanity Fair's 16th annual ranking of the world's movers and shakers, which will run in the magazine's October issue. The Palo Alto-based company has become a transformative technological powerhouse, connecting friends and family members across the planet, letting them share status updates, photos and videos of their everyday lives.
Following Zuckerberg is Apple's Steve Jobs. Though the company's flagship iPhone 4 experienced a bumpy rollout due to antenna issues, the company continued its string of successful innovations with its iPad, a device that's going a long way to bridge the gap between smart phones and laptop computers.
The men behind Google - Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt - took the third slot, further cementing the idea that the center of power in the world may not rest in New York City, but rather in Northern California.
News Corp's media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Amazon chief Jeff Bezos rounded out the top five.
The highest ranking politician on the list is New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who came in seventh. Johnny Depp was the highest ranking actor, coming in at 20 and Lady Gaga was the top performer, ranking 23rd.
Selected Reading: Vanity Fair