We're pleased to note that TidBITS publisher Adam C. Engst achieved his sixth consecutive top five ranking in the MDJ Power 25, moving up two places this year to rank behind only Apple's CEO Steve Jobs and COO Tim Cook. Voters in the nearly annual survey said that Adam's ranking was due to the reach of TidBITS and the success of the Take Control ebook series, along with his vast number of connections and desire to make the Mac community a better place by making sure that the right people know each other.
<http://www.macjournals.com/gcsf/mdj_power_25_ 2005-2006.html>
For those who haven't followed the MDJ Power 25, it attempts to ferret out who wields power and influence in the Macintosh community - whether or not the names are familiar to most users. It's not a public popularity contest - votes are gathered only from a select set of Macintosh industry insiders: journalists, programmers, executives, and others in key positions.
<http://db.tidbits.com/series/1246>
Filling out the top five this year were Apple industrial designer Jonathan Ive and Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg, who broke into the top five for the first time. Also moving up significantly was Macworld's Jason Snell (#6), who is now officially Vice President and Editorial Director of Mac Publishing. You can see the entire list at the first link above; to read the full explanations of what each person does and why they warranted inclusion on the list, sign up for a free trial subscription to MWJ, the weekly version of the daily (and even more detailed) MDJ.
Newcomers to the list include:
Paul Otellini (#9), president and CEO of Intel Corporation, thanks to his direct involvement in Apple's transition to Intel CPUs.
<http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/bios/ otellini.htm>
Tony Fadell (#12), Apple's senior vice president of the iPod division, because of the "halo effect" that has caused iPod owners to become Mac users.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/fadell.html>
John Gruber (#14), the author of the excellent Daring Fireball weblog that has become required reading for many in the Macintosh community.
Brent Simmons (#16), the developer of the popular NetNewsWire RSS reader that so many people use for their daily news intake.
<http://www.newsgator.com/NGOLProduct.aspx? ProdID=NetNewsWire>
Scott Forstall (#18), Apple's vice president of "platform experience," which means that he oversees the high-level parts of Mac OS X, including the human interface.
Nick Ciarelli (#23), the publisher of the Think Secret rumor site who was catapulted to fame by being sued by Apple.
Bob Mansfield (#24), Apple's vice president of Macintosh hardware engineering.
Congratulations to these people and everyone else who made the list this year!