Daniel Lyons
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Daniel Lyons (born 1960 in Massachusetts) is an American writer. He is a senior editor at Forbes magazine. He has written a book of short stories, The Last Good Man (1993), a novel, Dog Days (1998), and a fictional biography, Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody (2007). He also writes The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, a popular blog and parody of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, under the pseudonym Fake Steve Jobs.
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[edit] Fake Steve Jobs
Before the identity of Fake Steve Jobs was revealed by New York Times technology correspondent Brad Stone on August 5, 2007,[1] The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs was referenced by numerous online and print media such as Engadget,[2] BusinessWeek,[3] Forbes,[4] Der Spiegel,[5] El Mundo[6] and CNET.[7] Fake Steve Jobs ranked 37th in a Business 2.0 article entitled "50 Who Matter Now."
Previous guesses as to the blog's author included Leander Kahney of Wired (particularly at some of Fake Steve Jobs's Briticisms),[8] Eric Savitz of Barron's,[9] John Paczkowski of All Things Digital[10] and Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times..[11] Another suggestion was that Jack Miller, the webmaster/blogger of the As the Apple Turns website, which was seemingly abandoned in 2006, but which is still live, could possibly be Fake Steve Jobs.[12]
At the The Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital technology conference, the real Steve Jobs was quoted as saying "I have read a few of the Fake Steve Jobs things recently and I think they’re pretty funny."[13] During a later joint interview, Bill Gates quipped that he was not Fake Steve Jobs.[14]
In October 2007, he released the book Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody, under the pseudonym "Fake Steve Jobs". Although based largely upon previous material published on the The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog, the book creates a more cohesive narrative focusing especially on the stock options backdating scandal looming over Steve Jobs in late 2006 and early 2007.
[edit] Nicknames used in the blog
In the blog itself, Fake Steve Jobs uses a few fairly well known nicknames for the people he writes about. The most common one is something with the suffix “-tard” (as in retard), as in Microtard for someone in or with Microsoft or freetard for someone in the Free Software movement. Other nicknames include:
- The Borg – Microsoft (the Borg is a fairly common nickname for Microsoft)
- The Original Borg or OB: - IBM
- Beastmaster or Kermit – Bill Gates
- Faceberg (later ZuckerBorg)[15] – Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of Facebook)
- Goatberg – Walt Mossberg (technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal)
- Mary Jo Creepy – Mary Jo Foley (a ZDNet blogger, who is a specialist in Microsoft)
- Monkey Boy or Uncle Fester – Steve Ballmer
- My Little Pony – Jonathan Schwartz
- Squirrel Boy – Eric Schmidt
Fake Steve Jobs is also known for his very “creative” geography, for example showing a picture of Ottawa for Toronto, confusing Lebanon with the city of Lisbon and Austria with Australia.
[edit] Work as Technical Analyst
Before Fake Steve Jobs, Dan Lyons was a senior editor at Forbes magazine, covering enterprise computing and consumer electronics. He was also the author of the Forbes cover article, "Attack of the Blogs", where he claimed that blogs "are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective", claiming that Groklaw was primarily created "to bash software maker SCOGroup in its Linux patent lawsuit against IBM, producing laughably biased, pro-IBMcoverage". (Source: Forbes).
Between 2003 and 2007 he covered the SCO case against IBM and Linux. He published articles like "What SCO Wants, SCO Gets", where he stated that "like many religious folk, the Linux-loving crunchies in the open-source movement are a) convinced of their own righteousness, and b) sure the whole world, including judges, will agree. They should wake up." (Source: Forbes), "SCO's 'Smoking Gun' Versus IBM" (Source: Forbes), "SCO Scores" (Source: Forbes).
In 2007, Dan Lyons admitted being "Snowed By SCO": "For four years, I've been covering a lawsuit for Forbes.com, and my early predictions on this case have turned out to be so profoundly wrong that I am writing this mea culpa." (Source: Forbes). "In March 2003, SCO sued IBM claiming that IBM took code from Unix--for which SCO claimed to own copyrights--and put that code into Linux, which is distributed free. Last month a judge ruled that SCO does not, in fact, own the Unix copyrights. That blows SCO's case against IBM out of the water. SCO, of Lindon, Utah, is seeking bankruptcy protection."
[edit] References
- ^ A Mystery Solved: ‘Fake Steve’ Is an Editor
- ^ Real interview with Fake Steve Jobs, Engadget
- ^ In Search of the Real Fake Steve Jobs, BusinessWeek
- ^ Who Is Fake Steve Jobs?, Forbes
- ^ Fake-Jobs und wie er die Apple-Welt sieht, Der Spiegel
- ^ Los dos Steve Jobs, El Mundo
- ^ The Fake Steve Jobs is..., CNET News.com
- ^ Exclusive: The unmasking of Fake Steve Jobs, Valleywag
- ^ Fake Steve Jobs, Valleywag
- ^ Rumormonger: Steve Jobs, meet Steve Jobs, Valleywag
- ^ Fake Steve Jobs: Andy Ihnatko, faux Apple CEO?, Valleywag
- ^ Was Fake Steve Really Jack Miller Of AtAT?
- ^ Jobs on YouTube Weirdness, Windows Love and “Fake Steve”, Wall Street Journal
- ^ D Transcript: Gates, Jobs Reminisce, Wall Street Journal
- ^ Filthy hacks, I'm warning you: Lay off Zuckerberg, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
[edit] External links
- The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
- Personal blog Dan Lyons
- A video interview of Daniel Lyons about Fake Steve Jobs on Microsoft's Channel 10
- Unabridged interview with Lyons by Wallstrip's Lindsay Campbell on the release of his book, Options, October 28, 2007
- Daniel Lyons speaks at Google about his blog, his book, and the real Steve Jobs
- Daniel Lyons Speaks at Cody Books in Berkeley, CA
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