Wired magazine just published its yearly list of people who are about to change the world, nominated by high-profile innovators and influencers such as Richard Branson, Niklas Zennström, Ai Weiwei and James Dyson. The 2012 Smart list features an eclectic mix of scientists, artists, philosophers, inventors, businesspeople and human rights activists, and it was great to see Badoo founder Andrey Andreev nominated by none other than Jimmy Wales.
The founder of Wikipedia chose Andrey as someone who was “smart, serious, interesting, and on a mission to create something that people like.” He said he was impressed with the way Badoo works, its business model, and the way it grew to over 130 million users in an under-the-radar way.
Badoo’s growth was also talked about in the latest report on Social Networking published by comScore this week. The report indicated that Badoo was one of the “next disrupters” to watch out for, quoting its massive 64% growth in the last year.
We’d say that’s a great start to 2012!