T3 - Tech 100

One of the most famous faces here.

What’s an alternative rock-type doing on a list like this, you ask? Reznor’s been very outspoken about the flaws in the music industry, launching an attack on his band Nine Inch Nails’ record label Universal for their unfair retail pricing. Urging fans to "steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealing”, he then followed Radiohead’s lead and released two albums as a free download via the band’s site last year.

It didn’t stop there, however. This year’s Webby Artist of the Year award winner harnessed the power of YouTube and requested fans help out with creating music videos for NIN, and unlike most artists, he has a very relaxed attitude towards intellectual property and copyright laws, asking concert-goers to help film the performance and upload to the web.

He’s one of the few musicians who truly understands what the internet can do for his brand, using social media in all possible ways, including working with Tapulous to create a NIN version of Tap Tap Revenge for the iPhone.

In fact, he’ll endorse just about anything online, except Twitter – he famously stopped updating his account in June after being inundated with “hate and good old fashioned blatant racism”.