The founder of the controversial app Snapchat has been voted by students as the most influential new media figure under the age of 30.
Evan Spiegel, CEO of the instant photo app, emerged ahead of YouTube superstars Jamal Edwards, Zoella and Alfie Deyes in Birmingham City University’s ‘Under 30 New Media Power List’, voted by young people.
Spiegel, 24, co-founded Snapchat in July 2011 while studying at Stanford University. In August 2014 the company was valued at $10 billion.
Watch this video from Vanity Fair interviewing Speigel and Micheal Bloomberg here:
He has been invited to receive a special award from students at Rethink Media 2015, a new media event being held by Birmingham City University on 18 March.
The founder of micro blogging site Tumblr David Karp was the second most influential figure according to the audience of 15-24 year olds polled at a Gadget Show event hosted by the University last month. UK YouTubers Tanya Burr, Zoella and Alfie Deyes – with more than 12 million subscribers combined – also made the top 20 of the poll but trailed behind Jamal Edwards, the 23-year-old owner of online music video company SBTV.
More than 100 million people use Spiegel’s Snapchat each month to send a photo to a friend, with users able to control how long the picture can be seen before the image disappears.
The short-lived nature of the technology made global headlines in October when hackers intercepted messages and posted some often explicit content online. Snapchat said the problem was solely down to users employing third party versions of their app and that its servers weren’t breached.
The Under 30 Power List was unveiled ahead of the Rethink Media event in March, presented by The Gadget Show’s Jason Bradbury and featuring speakers including Google Director Frank Golding who will discuss the changing nature of multi-platform content provision.
Last year’s event included the exclusive announcement from BBC Radio 1 Controller Ben Cooper that 1Xtra Live was to come to Birmingham in November 2014.
THE UNDER 30 NEW MEDIA POWER LIST
1. Evan Spiegel (24) – An American internet entrepreneur who is CEO and co founder of Snapchat, a photo messaging application. According to Snapchat, in May 2014, the app’s users were sending 700 million photos and videos per day, while Snapchat Stories content was being viewed 500 million times per day
2. David Karp (28) – Founder and CEO of Tumblr, a microblogging platform and social networking website which allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog.
3. Jenna Marbles (28) – American entertainer and YouTube personality with over 13 million subscribers. Her ‘How to’ videos have been featured in articles by The New York Times and ABC News. Jenna has also released a brand of dog toys called Kermie Worm & Mr Marbles.
4. Jamal Edwards (23) – The owner of SBTV, a broadcasting company that makes music videos featuring rap and pop stars, before putting them on YouTube and attracting millions of hits.
5. Felix Kjellberg (24) – Better known by his online alias, PewDiePie, Felix is a Swedish video game commentator on YouTube. PewDiePie has 30m YouTube subscribers and had 449m video views in August 2014 alone.
6. Zoe Sugg (Zoella) (24) – An English fashion and beauty vlogger and internet personality. She is best known by her fans on YouTube as Zoella. Her main YouTube channel has more than 6.1m subscribers, while her MoreZoella channel has 2.3m.
7. Sean Rad (27) – Founder and CEO of Tinder, a matchmaking mobile app which connects with users’ Facebook profiles to provide pictures and ages for other users to view. Tinder is available in 24 languages. As of April 2014, Tinder is rumoured to have more than 10 million active daily users.
8. Tyler Oakley (25) – An American YouTube personality and advocate for LGBT youth and social issues, including healthcare and education. Tyler has over 3 million Twitter followers.
9. Freddie Wong (29) – Formed the production company RocketJump and is the creator of mini action movies. Has gained over 1 million subscribers since beginning uploading videos in 2010.
10. Tanya Burr (25) ¬– YouTube sensation best known for her make-up and fashion channel on YouTube, which now has 2.5m subscribers. In 2014, she released her own cosmetics diffusion line under the brand Tanya Burr Cosmetics.
11. Tom Cassell (21) – Known as TheSyndicateProject, Tom Syndicate is a British gaming commentator and vlogger. Tom’s channel opened in September 2010 and he quickly grew to be one of the biggest gaming channels on YouTube. He received media attention due to leaving his school and job in order to become a YouTuber.
12. Pete Cashmore (29) – CEO and Founder of Mashable, a news and advice blog about social media. Mashable draws 7.8 million unique visitors and has become one of the web’s most popular blogs.
13. Mark Turpin (29) – CEO of Yogscast, a group of YouTube broadcasters who produce gaming-related video content focused on World of Warcraft and Minecraft. YOGSCAST Lewis & Simon became the first channel in the United Kingdom to reach one billion views.
14. David Burstein (25) – A millennial writer, filmmaker, and storyteller. He is the author of Fast Future: How the Millennial Generation is Shaping Our World.
15. Ian Andrew Hecox and Anthony Padilla (both 26) – Web-based comedy duo. As of 2014, the Smosh channel has more than 18 million subscribers and 3.6 billion video views. The Smosh team has expanded to include animated content, Spanish language, and gaming content videos.
16. Xavier Damman (29) – Co-founder of Storify, a social network service that lets the user create stories or timelines using social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
17. Alfie Deyes (21) – An English vlogger who runs the YouTube channels PointlessBlog, PointlessBlogTv and AlfieGames. Alfie started his PointlessBlog YouTube channel in 2009. As of August 2014, he had over 2.9 million subscribers and over 136 million views on YouTube.
18. Marques Brownlee (20) – Better known by his stage name, MKBHD, he is a video producer, host, tech-reviewer and internet personality. Host of technology-based YouTube channel, MKBHD, Marques was described last year by Vic Gundotra, the Senior Vice President, Social, for Google, as “the best technology reviewer on the planet right now”.
19. Lily Pebbles (26) – Lily is a UK beauty and lifestyle blogger & vlogger, and graduate of Birmingham City University. She runs her blog and YouTube channel full-time, attends regular press events, collaborates with brands such as ASOS and won a Johnson & Johnson Journalism Award for Best Independent Beauty Blogger.
20. Steffan Aquarone (28) – CEO of Droplet. A UK entrepreneur and film producer Steffan is the co-founder of mobile money app Droplet, which lets you load money onto your phone and send payments to anyone for free.
Source: www.rethinkmedia.biz.