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August 24, 2007

Attack Of The Fake Bloggers

Duncan Riley

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Whilst Fake Steve Jobs has gained the most attention in the fake personal blog scene, a number of other fake blogs have been launched this year. Here’s a quick run down of a few that might be worthy of adding to your feed reader…or maybe not.

fake1.jpgThe Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
No list of fake blogs would be complete without the master. Although the blog may have lost its edge since Daniel Lyons was outed as the writer, the site still maintains a strong following and Lyon’s way with words still makes for delicious reading.

fake2.jpg The Secret Diary of Steve Balmer
I’ve been reading this fake blog longer than most on this list, and I’m yet to unsubscribe. It’s not as well written as its Steve Jobs equivalent, but it has the occasionally side splitting post. Probably the closest of the bunch to being a direct clone of Fake Steve.

fake3.jpgLarry Ellison’s Fake Blog
A decent read, if it times a little heavy, but in context it works. Fake Larry made a brief guest appearance on Fake Steve a little while back, so it’s not inconceivable that the author is Daniel Lyons as well, or someone else who perhaps works with Lyons.

fake4.jpg The Secret Diary of Jonathon Schwartz
As the header reads: “Dude, I was the first CEO to even have a blog.” Of course the real Schwartz does maintain his own blog. The way this is written tone wise makes it sound just like Schwartz.

fake5.jpgThe Secret Diary of Bill Gates
Unfortunately what could have been the best of the bunch is a let down. Poor context and tries too hard to be funny; the difference between clever satire and stupidity is lost on fake Bill Gates. Some may disagree though.

Moving away from corporate heads, there are a number of other fake blogs out there, here’s a couple

fake6.jpgFake Scoble
To quote the about page: “Scoble himself is so unintentionally hilarious that this site is superfluous –but hey it will be fun. Fake Scoble is about low hanging fruit. Actually, it’s about the fruit beneath the tree. Obvious jokes are going to be the rule of the day.”

fake7.jpgThe Secret Diary of Brad Stone
“I outed Fake Steve Jobs. Have you heard of him?” Hit and miss, but has its moments. There must be something ironic though about there being a fake blog for the person who outed the most famous fake blogger of them all.

There is even a blog dedicated to news about fake blogs: I am not Fake Steve.

See also our coverage of mass produced fake bloggers from Newsgroper here.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 10:51 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.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. No Fake as the Original Fake

    August 24th, 2007 at 11:02 pm

  2. Attack Of The Fake Bloggers  »TechAddress

    August 24th, 2007 at 11:30 pm

  3. domelhor.net

    August 25th, 2007 at 7:14 am

  4. The Secret Blog of Patrick Manning

    August 25th, 2007 at 9:41 am

  5. Geek And Poke

    August 26th, 2007 at 2:53 pm

  6. ================== adam jusko's bessed blog

    September 4th, 2007 at 7:23 pm

  7. MSDN Blog Postings » Is TechCrunch turning Valleywag-ish?

    September 12th, 2007 at 12:44 am

Comments

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  1. Saagar

    August 24th, 2007 at 10:58 pm

    Fake Steve Jobs has already been revealed, now I guess that stupid reporter can go after other ones and reveal them too.. FSJ’s blog was so much fun reading without knowing who he was …

  2. anthropocentric

    August 24th, 2007 at 11:00 pm

    Don’t forget these other “fake” blogs over at newsgroper.com:

    Al Gore, Al Sharpton, Alberto Gonzales, Alex Rodriguez, Ann Coulter, Barack Obama, Barbara Walters, Barry Bonds, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Bill O’Reilly, Bill Richardson, Bob Dylan, Bono, Brad Pitt, Britney Spears, Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Walken, Courtney Love, Dalai Lama, Dan Brown, Dennis Kucinich, Dick Cheney, Donald Trump, Dr. Phil, Flava Flav, Fred Thompson, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Jared Fogle, Jayson Blair, Jessica Simpson, John Edwards, John McCain, Kate Moss, Katie Couric, Keith Richards, Kiefer Sutherland, Kim Jong-il, Laura Bush, Lindsay Lohan, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Martha Stewart, Mel Gibson, Mike Gravel, Mitt Romney, Mr. T, Nancy Grace, Olsen Twins, Paris Hilton, Pat Robertson, Pope Benedict XVI, Rachel Ray, Ralph Nader, Rudy Giuliani, Ryan Seacrest, Samuel L. Jackson, Scooter Libby, Sean Penn, Shaquille O’Neal, Shinzo Abe, Ted Turner, Tim Hardaway, Tom Cruise, Tyra Banks, Victoria Beckham, Vladimir Putin and others.

  3. Duncan Riley

    August 24th, 2007 at 11:02 pm

    anthropocentric
    I was sort of focused on non manufactured tech ones, but thanks for name dropping in the comments :-)

  4. anthropocentric

    August 24th, 2007 at 11:07 pm

    Duncan - FYI, I am not affiliated with newsgroper in any way. I just really like Greg Galant’s work.

  5. lawrence

    August 24th, 2007 at 11:33 pm

    these fake blog sites are just plain stupid.

  6. Duncan Riley

    August 25th, 2007 at 12:02 am

    I’m fake Duncan Riley. I like to say “Mike sucks!!! He does suck.”

  7. Andy

    August 25th, 2007 at 12:37 am

    seems that someone will start a fake Mike Arrington Blog
    http://fakemichaelarrington.blogspot.com/
    :)

  8. kvsnreddy

    August 25th, 2007 at 2:34 am

    Has anybody known about fake blog sites on popular cricketers?

  9. Vinay

    August 25th, 2007 at 3:20 am

    When are we gonna see a Fake “Tech Crunch” or Fake Micheal Arrington or Fake Duncan Riley blog :D !!! Ha Ha! ;)

    Cheers!

  10. TechMorons

    August 25th, 2007 at 3:34 am

    I hope someone clone Techcrunch and rename to GayCrunch. The writers will be “Oh Micheal Arrington” and “Oh Duncan Riley”. I hope they write flowery blogs saying “Oh Facebook makes me sexy!”

    EWwwwwwwww…..

  11. Fake Richard Branson

    August 25th, 2007 at 3:36 am

    Hey!

    Even though it’s a Bank Holiday weekend over here, my advisors told me of this little posting. I know Virgin isn’t as established in the US as it is in the UK (poor Yanks), but Virgin America should be changing that.

    It’s hard starting 2-3 businesses each week; I have to do a lot of strategic thinking in my hammock on my island. But I do manage to get a few posts written about my role in improving businesses across the world.

    Warm Regards,
    Sir Dick

  12. Fake J.K Rowling

    August 25th, 2007 at 3:51 am

    Warm Regards,
    Sir Dick

    hmmm… Strange English and English…. Is your virgin dick warm?

  13. NotSteve

    August 25th, 2007 at 4:14 am

    Hey Dunkan, I have a post just for Fake Tech Blogs

    You can update your list with this one:
    http://fakesteveb.blogspot.com/ it is “Fake Ballmer Blog/Version 2.0/”

    And I will be updating my list with Schwartz and Ellison.

  14. Dave

    August 25th, 2007 at 5:24 am

    I guess the CEO blogging business follows publishing when it comes to ghostwriting. Many of the hardcopy books by celebrities in entertainment, politics, and government are ghostwritten, and it is obvious that people still read these books, because the major publishing houses in New York will not publish a book if it does not have a good chance of turning a handsome profit. In fact one NY literary agent has said that to get non-fiction published by a major NY publisher, the apparent author has to have a big name, a name that appears on TV most weeks (or days). The big names may not be able or willing to write; the ghostwriters do it for them, while the publishers rake in the profits.

  15. Evan

    August 25th, 2007 at 5:50 am

    Has anyone seen this? http://fakekevinrose.blogspot.com/

  16. smash

    August 25th, 2007 at 6:56 am

    what. no Secret Diary of a Fake Blogger?

  17. Derrick

    August 25th, 2007 at 8:37 am

    Appreciate the round up. Didn’t realise that there were so many “fake identity blogs”. Although I myself never spared much a thought about reading such blogs.

  18. Fakeblogs.com

    August 25th, 2007 at 9:15 am

    Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t notice a fake Michael Arrington. That would be a great read if anyone could pull it off convincingly. (And I don’t want any of you trolls out there saying that it would be hard to be any more fake than the real thing.) That’s just not nice. I looked up “fakecrunch.com” and the domain is parked and advertising things like Ab Crunchers. I own fakeblogs.com and blogfakes.com if anyone is interested.

  19. Martin Gordon

    August 25th, 2007 at 9:21 am

    A recent up and comer is the fake 37signals blog, The 38th signal: http://38thsignal.blogspot.com/

  20. The Caveman

    August 25th, 2007 at 12:42 pm

    I can’t believe you forgot me. And they say neanderthals aren’t discriminated against. I’ll bet you work for GEICO Duncan.

  21. NotSteve

    August 25th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

    And I can’t believe my comment on this post from 12 hours ago has not been shown until now!

  22. Andy Fox

    August 25th, 2007 at 5:12 pm

    looks like fake steve jobs was only interesting when it was a mystery and he could say whatever he wanted— duh.

    Companies will never understand that once they put their big dumb hand into something its ruined.

  23. fake commentor

    August 25th, 2007 at 5:24 pm

    Am I the only one that thinks these people are a little but pathetic?

    They can’t get readers to view their content using their own identities and creativeness, so they pretend to be someone else? Frankly, I wouldn’t even care to read the blogs of the “real” people listed here let alone the “fakers”.

  24. David Mackey

    August 25th, 2007 at 6:19 pm

    I’ll hold out…’nough real blogs to read for now w/limited time.

  25. AriadneHuffanan

    August 25th, 2007 at 7:47 pm

    From the world of politics and lifestyle, check out HuffingtonPost.com. Unlike the other copycats and fake blogs, it looks like whoever’s behind it has put a lot of money into it. She calls herself “Arianna Huffington”, a clear take-off on my name.

  26. Fake Dan Lyons

    August 25th, 2007 at 9:54 pm

    A class act like myself would never stoop to plugging his own Fake Dan Lyons blog in a comments thread under an article about Fake blogs like some wild eyed freetard!

  27. FakeScoble

    August 25th, 2007 at 10:53 pm

    I didn’t think I would stoop to plugging my own site either, but those damn trackbacks are so hard to figure out. Remember a blogroll is a list of blogs you read, not me with my shirt off.

  28. DV Henkel-Wallace

    August 26th, 2007 at 1:53 am

    Then in a different domain there was dellrumors.com which had a few good posts early on (and then the writer seemed to get tired — it was a short joke anyway) as well as any of the Zune sites which appear to me to be astroturf….

  29. Michael Vu

    August 26th, 2007 at 4:02 pm

    Where’s the Fake Michael Arrington? =)

    http://www.fantasysportsmatrix.com

  30. Flanders

    August 26th, 2007 at 6:31 pm

    Is this for real or is this the fake Michael Arrington?

  31. HIMANSHU SHETH

    August 26th, 2007 at 9:27 pm

    What about the fake Hilary Clinton blog http://topsecrethillary.blogspot.com?

    -Himanshu Sheth

  32. Steve Ballmer

    August 28th, 2007 at 4:40 am

    Hey, you have me as #2!
    That copy-boy hack Lie-ons is a has-been,washed-up, old-news, wannabe with no talent.
    Don’t worry the editors and lawyers at Forbes will cut him down to size!
    Only my opinion matters here people.

    http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

  33. podunk

    August 29th, 2007 at 9:31 am

    Another fake Bill Gates… (a better fake gates too, imo)

    http://fake-bill.blogspot.com/

    A fake Paul Thurrott

    http://fakepaul.blogspot.com/

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