The final list of 100 names was decided by an online survey run by South African media giant Media24.
After voting closed, brief biographies were written for each person on the list; the book was published in 1999 by Human & Rousseau, in English and Afrikaans.
The voting portal contained a discussion forum so people could argue the merits or demerits of candidates.
It was also said that the survey compared apples with oranges, and questions were raised about whether Chris Barnard could truly have been said to have had more influence than Harry Oppenheimer, Jan Smuts and Gary Player.
[5] The survey's own web site fielded questions about the omission of Barney Barnato, Ysuf Veriava, Johan de Villiers, and Sammy Marks.