Top 10: Social networking billionaires 2011

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Yuri Milner
Net Worth: $ 1.0 billion
Companies: Facebook; Groupon; Zynga

The Internet savvy investor divided his Digital Sky Technologies into two parts last year. The first was the IPO of e-mail portal Mail.ru Group; the second, DST Global, remains a private fund investing in global internet companies (for example, paid $ 200 million in 2009 for stake in Facebook; the value of this initial investment has jumped an estimated five-fold). Now planning a bolder move: to invest in every startup that comes out of Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley-based startup incubator, without reading their business plans. DST also has stakes in Groupon and Zynga.

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Mark Pincus
Net Worth: $ 1.0 billion
Company: Zynga

In 2007 the Wharton and Harvard Business School grad founded social media gaming company Zynga, named after his beloved late bulldog. Today, following the latest round of funding, the firm is worth between $ 7 billion and $ 10 billion. Zynga's staggering success is tied to Facebook's; its popular interactive games, including "FarmVille," "FrontierVille" and "Mafia Wars," are played via the social network, and Pincus is reported to be an investor.

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Eric Lefkofsky
Net Worth: $ 1.6 billion
Company: Groupon

This Chicago based investor is cofounder and 30 per cent owner of the fastest-growing company ever, Groupon, providing audiences with discounts on products and services. The Accelerated Disruption author is an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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Yoshikazu Tanaka
Net Worth: $ 2.2 billion
Company: Gree

Founder of Gree, Japan's largest social networking Web site (having overtaken rival billionaire Kenji Kasahara's Mixi), may be facing off with Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook soon; setting up shop in California. Stock of firm, known for its fun, easy mobile games and avatars that people can accessorize, is up 35 per cent over the past year. He started out at Sony, and worked for fellow billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani at online shopping site Rakuten. Left in 2004 to set up Gree at a tech incubator; eventually transitioned the site into mobile gaming to better compete with rivals.

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Rupert Murdoch
Net worth: $ 7.6 billion
Company: Myspace

Murdoch is rumored to be looking to sell money-losing Myspace, which he bought in 2005 for $ 580 million. His traditional media fares better; Fox News made $ 700 million in operating profit in 2010. The Super Bowl on Fox was the most-watched TV broadcast ever. His Wall Street Journal keeps expanding while others shrink. Thanks to a close relationship with Apple, his News Corp. added digital subscriptions on the iPad with the $ 30 million launch of The Daily in February.