Earlier this year Time released its usual lists, citing the current most influential people on the planet in areas such as art, politics and science. But this year it also debuted a new list titled The Influence Index.

The list itself measures an individual's appeal by analysing activity on Facebook and Twitter. The algorithm applied to this end tallies followers on both Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts and applies a basic formula to even the influence of each network.

Read on to see who tops the list...