• Reuters, Friday, January 26, 2007 11:30 AM

Internet brands YouTube and Wikipedia have shot up in the global rankings of the world's most influential brands, both debuting in the top five this year in the annual survey conducted by Brandchannel.com.

The Web site has thrown up controversial results in the past, naming Arabic TV station Al Jazeera as the world's fifth-most-influential brand in 2004.

The survey asked 3,625 branding professionals and students on the brands that had the most impact on our lives in 2006. Search leader Google was the top brand for the second consecutive year, followed by iPod-maker Apple, online video sensation YouTube, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Coffee maker Starbucks rounded out the top five, while News Corp.'s social-networking giant MySpace was 15th.

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