MarketingVOX: Fake Steve Jobs, written by an anonymous blogger posing as a caricature of the real Steve Jobs, was revealed as the brainchild of an editor of Forbes Magazine, according to The Times.
Senior Editor Danial Lyons of Forbes was discovered by Brad Stone of The New York Times, who used old-fashioned sleuthing to get to the bottom of the mystery – that is, comparing writing styles after learning a satirical business book, written by a “writer for a major business magazine” and the voice of Fake Steve Jobs, was slated to come out this October.
“I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if a CEO kept a blog that really told you what he thought,” said Lyons to The New York Times regarding why he launched the blog.
He also expressed surprise that it took so long to discover his identity, and jokingly rebuked Stone for robbing fans of their sense of “childlike wonder.”
The real Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, whom the blog dubbed The Beastmaster, have admitted to reading Fake Steve Jobs at some point. It also sparked a movement in celebrity parody blogs.
Fake Steve Jobs targeted other CEOs, venture capitalists, journalists in the technology realm and fans of open-source software.
Like Lonelygirl15 after her apparently forgivable deception of the fawning public, the blog is expected to live on as part of Forbes.com.
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