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August 5, 2007

Fake Steve Jobs = Daniel Lyons

Duncan Riley

26 comments »

fakestevejobs.pngThe New York Times have spoiled the fun: Fake Steve Jobs has been outed as Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes.

Since August 2006 Fake Steve Jobs has become a must read in the Valley and beyond. Lyon’s acerbic wit coupled with continuing Apple related headlines created a blog that not only Steve Jobs and Bill Gates both admit to reading, but one where Bill Gates himself denied being the author of at the All Things Digital conference.

Half of the fun related to the blog has been not knowing who the author was. The Fake Steve guessing game became nearly a sport on certain blogs, and a number of people have been outed previously as being Fake Steve.

Lyons said in a statement on the Fake Steve Jobs blog:

Now you’ve ruined the mystery of Fake Steve, robbing thousands of people around the world of their sense of childlike wonder. Hope you feel good about yourself, you mangina. One bright side is that at least I was busted by the Times and not Valleywag.

He goes on to state that the site will be back after a break with a new sponsor.

One has to wonder though whether Lyons can continue to draw the same attention and traffic for the site now that his real identity has been exposed.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 5th, 2007 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Thomas - Technical Blogger

    August 5th, 2007 at 9:43 pm

  2. Geek And Poke

    August 6th, 2007 at 3:32 pm

  3. Le Blogueur » Blog Archive » Réflexions et sondage sur les fausses identités numériques

    August 9th, 2007 at 5:43 am

  4. amrit gill

    November 7th, 2007 at 7:26 am

Comments

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  1. Steve

    August 5th, 2007 at 8:47 pm

    Isn’t there something better that the NY Times could do rather than spoil this for all the readers?

  2. Tony

    August 5th, 2007 at 8:51 pm

    I guess there was some chance that the person behind it would be an apple employee, but I don’t think it will make too much difference that people know who it is.

  3. Robert Dewey

    August 5th, 2007 at 8:55 pm

    Lame… isn’t there some sort of “tort” this could fall under? Attempting to financially injure another person?

    NY Times is grabbing at straws. They are going down, and they know it - they just want to try and drag everyone with them.

  4. Saagar

    August 5th, 2007 at 9:02 pm

    Some people probably have fun in ruining other people’s fun or it is probably fame they are after, whatever it is, I am pretty sure the FSJ blog won’t be as fun as it was anymore for anyone..

  5. Ed

    August 5th, 2007 at 9:04 pm

    He was coming out anyhow. There’s a book coming out and Forbes was going to include columns. Someone was going to spill it.

  6. David Mackey

    August 5th, 2007 at 9:09 pm

    There are still a billion copycat Fake —– to be discovered.

  7. Geoff

    August 5th, 2007 at 9:25 pm

    I just like the word “mangina”. I like it even more that it comes from a sr. editor at Forbes. It’s like Old Media hurling itself into 8th grade. More please.

  8. Joe

    August 5th, 2007 at 9:41 pm

    I think we should have seen this coming. The NYT loves exposing all kinds of secrets. Concerts, Bloggers, issues of national security…

  9. Ola

    August 5th, 2007 at 11:35 pm

    Thanks a lot, Timestard!

  10. Medina

    August 6th, 2007 at 12:04 am

    Never heard of him or the blog. Any press is good press.

  11. housetier

    August 6th, 2007 at 12:19 am

    If a tree falls on a mime and then is made into paper on which these news are printed, and no one is around to read them - does anyone care?

  12. NotSteve

    August 6th, 2007 at 12:27 am

    “The Fake Steve guessing game became nearly a sport on certain blogs, and a number of people have been outed previously as being Fake Steve.”

    Tell me about it. I just lunched my blog in search of Fake Steve, and this guy from NY Times has “F”-d everything. I was going to ask you my usual question soon: “Hmm, Mike, are you Fake Steve?”
    But you don’t have to answer now. No one has to answer now. My blog is useless, I am useless. Damn!

  13. Brandon

    August 6th, 2007 at 4:02 am

    I think it stinks. I liked not knowing. I’ll still read of course for the wit, but I think it was a crappy thing to do to someone.

  14. nay min thu

    August 6th, 2007 at 5:05 am

    Umm, now that it’s been revealed, it won’t be fun anymore, guessing who’s behind.

  15. Keith Shepard

    August 6th, 2007 at 7:48 am

    Perfect! Now, Daniel Lyons just needs to get the real Steve Jobs to write for the fake Steve Jobs blog and people with think it’s Daniel Lyons tying to be Steve Jobs when in reality IT IS Steve Jobs.

    The perfect set-up in a bland world that’s yoinked around by a media culture that farts gold.

  16. Shambhu Borah

    August 6th, 2007 at 7:53 am

    But he’s still great when he slips back into his persona:

    “Well, I’m taking a few days off to sit in a lake and do some yoga and meditation and non-thinking.”

  17. Owen

    August 6th, 2007 at 8:23 am

    Fake steve jobs was fun, I guess. I never read it, I thought it was dumb. Real Daniel Lyons is a journalist with a strong anti-open source and anti-blogger bias (he has been a major SCO booster throughout their law suits just to name one example). His entire personal blog is basically an anti-Groklaw site. That’s not the same kind of fun.

  18. dave

    August 6th, 2007 at 9:23 am

    who would want to read the now obvious marketing materials for some guy’s upcoming business book given this new information? readers should feel duped, the entire thing was a marketing ruse and channel for a publication date…

  19. Paul Bradish

    August 6th, 2007 at 9:41 am

    I had a good time reading Fake Steve Jobs, but don’t think that I’ll be reading it any longer now that I know who it is :). Marketing ruse indeed.

  20. DotPoet

    August 6th, 2007 at 10:10 am

    There was always a kid
    Named Frankie or Sid
    That would tell the seeker
    Where the rest of us hid.

    He’d tattle in class
    Then we’d kick his ass
    But his song never changed
    He’d fink once again

    So thanks, Brad and John
    For not letting Fake Steve march on
    Some may think you two are cool,
    Just watch your back after school…

  21. Eran

    August 6th, 2007 at 12:39 pm

    What a mess.
    The fun part of the Fake Steve Jobs was not the mystery behind who it really is, but imagining The REAL Steve Jobs remarking and writing in his particular way. The posts were simply witty and superimposing the Apple creator behind the remarks made it so much more brilliant.
    What a mess, it was definitely not needed. Now I have the face of Daniel Lyons (no offense Daniel) behind the words…it is simply not as funny as it was.
    Power of journalism at its best…how ironic.

    -Eran

  22. Richard Wicks

    August 13th, 2007 at 1:02 pm

    This is the same man that, abuot blogs, once said:

    “Web logs are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective. Their potent allies in this pursuit include Google and Yahoo.”

    How can you stand the hypocrisy?

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