Geek Love: Steve Jobs our favorite "Powergeek"

This month's edition of Blender magazine presents a list of the 25 most influential people in the world of web music. In what shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs -- the man who launched a 100-million-plus iPods -- nabbed the number-one spot.

In a statement to Reuters, Blender editor-in-chief Craig Marks noted that "The iTunes store and the iPod have done more to change the way people listen to music than anything since the CD, and maybe since the sound recording."

Music fans such as myself now discover new artists online through blogs and services like iTunes. In the past, fans of new music would hear a catchy song on the radio and hope the DJ would mention the name of the song or artist so the cassette tape or CD (or record) could be procured. These days, new music is being discovered at warp speed and is immediately available, thanks in large part to visionaries like Jobs.

The team of Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe -- founders of the News Corp. (NYSE: NWS)-owned MySpace -- ranked second on Blender's list. The site allows independent musicians the to share their tunes with would-be fans for download and provide tour information. Third place went to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) unit YouTube, which Marks called "the star-maker MTV used to be."

Other names on the list included Universal Music Group chairman Doug Morris, Ian Rogers of Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) music, and Greg Bildson of the LimeWire file-sharing program.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.