Brandchannel.com just released their most influential brands of 2005. No surprise: Google top (GGE 
). Apple second. But Skype third is more surprising and pretty cool if you own stock in eBay like me ;-) Clearly this was voted for by cool, slightly-but-not-too tekky media and advertising folk. But it's still thought-provoking.
You can see the full rankings here
Interesting how branding ain't that global; that BBC is a big brand (government owned after all); Nokia still top in Europe despite a shaky year; Firefox is top ten; and craigslist and Wholefoods (used to be my local in Evanston) continuing to make waves in the US. Bono is also a global brand apparently, sounds like a brand of dog food to me 
The worlds most influential brands
Google top the list of the worlds most influental brands. On a close second place comes Apple and then Skype, Starbucks and IKEA. Brandchannel has the complete list...