I have to admit I first read this as (virtual) herpes. - Louis Gray

Louis, then who is your (virtual) valtrex? - Jeff Quinton

Nick Carr. He has a healthy distaste for Kool-Aid. - Sprague D

At the risk of not seizing the opportunity for a bunch of cheap laughs, Louis, do you have any virtual role models (text changed to avoid confusion... ;-) ) - Mark Dykeman

Scoble. I used to not understand him. Now I've developed a much better appreciation for what he does. Heavy info consumption and distribution, more direct conversations with people than anyone I know, and a good sense about the value of things. - Hutch Carpenter

@Julian - I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy from the publisher and I gotta say that it was a good read. - Steven Hodson

personally I don't really like the term hero as it has connatations of putting people on a pedestal. Now if you were to ask who I respect (which btw I think is worth more than being a hero) that would be a different story - Steven Hodson

@Steven - OK, then who do you respect in the blogosphere/social media space? - Mark Dykeman

@Mark: Scoble, Carr, Duncan Riley, Alexander van Elsas, Mathew Ingram, chartreuse ... that will do for now but there are a bunch more that I also respect but these were the first that came to mind - Steven Hodson

:-) - Mitchell Tsai

I'm going to point out the elephant in the middle of the room at this point: I don't see any women's names... - Mark Dykeman

I'll fix that, Mark. Sarah Perez is my hero. - Louis Gray

Great post mate. These days Cyndy and Leslie (Profy), Richard (RWW), Steve Hodson, Louis, Matt Ingram and people like you. I need fresh perspective and that's where it's coming from these days. - Steve Spalding

Gary Vaynerchuk. If I could be half as successful as he's become and still have the enthusiasm, I'd be okay with that. - Mark Trapp

All the developers of the cool products: Ben Golub, Alexander Marktl, Caleb Elston, the FriendFeed crew... - Louis Gray

Umair Haque - Mark Forman

@Mark I ended up writing a post on this :) http://www.winextra.com/2008... expanded on it a bit by adding in the "why's" - Steven Hodson

+1 for Umair Haque. - Atul Arora

I only follow my heroes. Why settle for less? - morten saxnaes

Louis, odd- I'm writing a blog entry about HPV (sorta related) at the moment. - Kimberly J from NoiseRiver

Louis Gray is my hero, too! - Sarah Perez

@Steven - checking out your post now... - Mark Dykeman

....and ditto everyone that's already been listed above as well as everyone who's linked at the top of my blog.... This is a great list! - Sarah Perez

Thanks Steven and Steve! I'd be sure to leave someone out, so I'm not making a list. :) - Cyndy

@Sarah, yeah, pretty good list, but who's this Scoble guy they keep talking about? I hear that name every now and then... ;-) [please, please, please understand that I'm kidding....] - Mark Dykeman

Clay Shirky, Fred Wilson, Michael Rosenblum, David Weinberger,and Denise Shiffman. - Dave Martin

Leo Laporte, John C. Dvorak, Kevin Rose, Ray Kurzweil, Cory Doctorow. They've all, in my mind, achieved greatness in a narrow niche that they saw thru from concept to completion. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Douglas Engelbart. By far. - Robert Scoble

Leo Leporte, the mighty Scoble, and the scrappy Louis Gray, who I feel like I've watched become a Powerhouse through FriendFeed and is a genuinely good guy from everything that I can tell. - Vince DeGeorge

@Robert - good call. - Mark Dykeman

@Robert - DE is a level up - the superhero - Dave Martin

Robert Scoble, Louis Gray, Thomas Hawk, Hutch Carpenter, Steve Hodson, Corvida, Duncan Riley, Alexander van Elsas. Only been reading blogs for a few months... It's pretty overwhelming what you guys keep up with. - Mitchell Tsai

Louis' comment is funny - Alex Hammer

If we need more proof that Friendfeed is a tech community (or Mark has only tech friends), look no further, if I'm not mistaking there isn't a single non-tech person on the hero list :-) - Alexander van Elsas

So to counterweight that a bit, I vote for Nelson Mandela, who just turned 90, Johan Cruyff who was one of the most brilliant soccer players ever around, Jimi Hendrix cause Little Wing is the most brilliant guitar piece I ever heard, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson for bringing us Filthy, Rich and Catflap, Bottom, and a whole lot of other great comedy shows. I could go on for a while ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

@Alexander - good list, but the premise of the question was to ask specifically for virtual heroes/online models, which would naturally be weighted towards bloggers. :) - Mark Dykeman

You provided me with a little slack to get away from the blogging scene when you said (virtual) ;-) I like many of the bloggers and tech people mentioned btw, Riberst Scoble went for the inventor of the mouse (I think?) , I took it a bit further away from the tech community ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Kos and Andrew Sullivan. I might not agree with the politics all the time, but they both were instrumental in the emergence of blogging as a job/ career, and in establishing blogging as a serious medium. - Duncan Riley

If we're going to limit ourselves to bloggers, many of the ones I look up to are on this thread. I love hanging out here, and it's because of all of you. - Robert Scoble

Robert ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

What no Arrington? - Toby Graham

@Alexander, one of your many talents is to ignore restrictions when it makes sense to do so. :) - Mark Dykeman

Robert Scoble -- workaholic. Jeremy Owyang --smart. But there are lots of gr8 ppl. Duncan Riley, Marshall Kirkpatrick. The list goes on. But at the top of the list for me it's Scoble and Jowyang - john conroy

@louis Virtual herpes! Funny... that's what kids and lack of sleep does to us!! - Gabriel Nijmeh

Robert Scoble, Louis Gray, and the ENTIRE LINUX COMMUNITY. - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

The readers of my blog... they keep coming back and making me smarter on a daily basis. - Kevin C. Tofel

someone is going to write up this thread and crunch the numbers, right?? - john conroy