505 million: Chinese Internet user base. This amounts to 37.7% internet penetration

Renren Better known as China's Facebook, this social networking site was founded by Wang Xing, Wang Huiwen and Lai Binqiang in 2005 Market Cap: $2.11billion

Baidu A Google clone. Established in 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu, it's China's No. 1 search engine. Founder Robin Li is said to be the richest man in China Market Cap: $48billion

Sina Weibo, China's answer to Twitter set up by Charles Chao, who sensed an opportunity after Beijing shut down non-China based microblogging sites in 2009 Market Cap: $4.2billion

Alibaba Founded by Jack Ma, Alibaba is one of China's largest Internet groups. Its businesses: alibaba. com, etao, Tmall, TaoBao, Alipay and China Yahoo! Market Cap:$40billion

Youku Translated into 'excellent' or 'cool', this Youtube clone founded by Victor Koo in 2006. It is China's No. 1 Internet video company Market Cap: $2.41billion

Tencent Founded by Ma Huateng and Zhang Zhidong in 1998, it owns China's biggest portal. Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu together constitute the TAB triumvirate Market Cap: $44billion

The internet  has created so me of the world's youngest billionaires, possibly in the shortest possible time scale, ever.

The richest are Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the pair who set up Google in the late 1990s. They went from PhD students to (paper) billionaires in about five years.

The youngest is 25-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, founder of social networking site Facebook, who has returned to the billionaire list in 2010 after dropping out in 2009 amid the economic downturn.

As part of SuperPower - a season of programmes exploring the power of the internet - BBC News lists the top 26 richest internet entrepreneurs according to the latest Forbes ranking, released this week.

INTERNET BILLIONAIRES: The table can be re-ordered by clicking on any of the column headings

	Name	Age	Comment	Worth (billions of US $)	Website	Nationali

Jeffrey Skoll	45	Ebay's first president and full-time employee. Now a film producer	2.4		Canada

David Cheriton

58

Stanford professor who introduced Google's co founders to each other

1.6

Canada

	Shi Yuzhu	47	Founder of Giant Interactive, one of China's most successful online game companies	1.6		China
	Ma Huateng	38	Runs China's most popular online chat service	3.6		China

	Robin Li	41	Co-founded China's most popular search site Baidu	3.5		China
	William Ding	38	Founded China's no.2 online game company. Once China's richest man	2.2		China
	Jack Ma	45	Founder, chairman and chief executive of internet business Alibaba	1.2		China
	Andreas von Bechtolsheim	54	His initial $100,000 stake in Google made him a billionaire	2.0		Germany
	Masayoshi Son	52	Controls Japanese internet and telecom firm SoftBank	5.9		Japan

	Hiroshi Mikitani	45	Runs Japan's leading online shopping mall	4.8		Japan
	Yoshikazu Tanaka	33	Founded the second most popular social networking site in Japan - Gree	1.4		Japan
	Mark Cuban	51	Former bar tender who sold internet video website to Yahoo for 5.7bn	2.4		US
	Pierre Omidyar	42	French-born immigrant launched online auction site in 1995	5.2		US
	Sergey Brin	36	Co-founded Google	17.5		US
	Jeff Bezos	46	Founded Amazon in a Seattle garage	12.3		US

	Charles Schwab	72	Brought online investing to the masses	4.7		US
	Mark Zuckerberg	25	Founded Facebook in early 2004 while at Harvard university	4.0		US
	Eric Schmidt	54	Google's grown-up chief executive	6.3		US
	David Filo	43	Met Yahoo co-founder Yang at Stanford University	1.4		US
	Margaret Whitman	53	Former eBay chief, now running for California govenor	1.3		US
	Jerry Yang	41	Turned internet directory project into Yahoo portal	1.3		US
	Marc Benioff	45	Held posts at Oracle and Apple before launching Salesforce.com	1.3		US

	Todd Wagner	49	Co-founded broadcast.com with friend Mark Cuban	1.2		US
	Peter Thiel	42	The first outside investor in Facebook 2004. He also co-founded paypal	1.2		US
	Larry Page	37	Co-founded Google	17.5		US
	Stephen Case	51	Former Pizza Hut store manager who co-founded AOL	1.1		US