He's been pretending to be the founder of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) 
for the last 14 months, but now his cover has been blown. Forbes Senior Editor Dan Lyons is Fake Steve Jobs, the irreverent author of a popular satirical blog, "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs," about all things tech.
Lyons was outed on Sunday by New York Times reporter Brad Stone. He's come out and confessed, saying he figured he'd be caught sooner or later. FSJ fans worldwide are in shock or, at least, a state of mild annoyance.
Game Over?
For many, it was almost as enjoyable to try to guess who was authoring the phony thoughts of Apple's famous CEO as it was to read them. For those readers, there's not much joy in the knowledge that Lyons plans to continue writing as Fake Steve. The blog will be on the Forbes site.
"I'm coming back next week, badder than ever, with a new sponsor -- my homeboys at Forbes.com," wrote Lyons/Fake Steve. "Turns out they've been reading FSJ and liking it too. Who knew?"
Stone was hit with a barrage of angry messages after he wrote, on The New York Times' "Bits" blog, "Are you happy that the mystery has been solved? Or did we just ruin the fun for everyone? Let us know in the comments."
The vast majority of the more than 130 comments posted by midday Monday were critical of the Times for blowing the secret.
To Catch a Faker
Lyons' authorship of a soon-to-be released satirical novel written in FSJ's voice partially "led to Mr. Lyon's unmasking." Lyons' agent showed the book manuscript to several prospective publishers "and told them the anonymous author was a published novelist and writer for a major business magazine," the reporter said.
In his search to unmask FSJ, Stone looked for somebody who fit that description. He also compared FSJ's writing style to that used by Lyons in his personal blog called "Floating Point."
In an audio interview available on the Forbes site, Lyons said he was hoping to stay anonymous for about four more months. "But on the other hand," he wrote, "I knew it couldn't stay anonymous forever and it had to happen ... I would have been happy to stay anonymous. I hope it doesn't ruin the fun of the blog."
Fans of "The Secret Life of Steve Jobs" might take heart in Lyons' promise that the Forbes brass promised him nothing will change about the FSJ blog. "They want it to be really edgy and fun," said Lyons in the online interview. They are not going to edit it or censor it in any way. Just let it rip and have fun."
The Thrill Is Gone
Despite those assurances, it will be a strange new world for FSJ and his readers. Lyons might be able to pull off continuing "The Secret Life of Steve Jobs," but it won't be easy, said David Greenberg, an assistant professor of journalism, media studies and history at Rutgers University.
"It may work for different reasons, but I tend to think these things don't often work once the secret is exposed," Greenberg told MacNewsWorld. "Sometimes, when the secret is revealed, the magic disappears."
He pointed to the book Primary Colors, which was a top seller when its author's anonymity remained intact. "It was a pretty crappy novel, but people were interested because they fantasized it was written by a Clinton Administration insider and might be holding some real clues about the Clinton campaign and private life," said Greenberg. "When it turned out it was written by a journalist, people stopped caring since anybody could have written it. It just turned out to be one guy's fantasy about Bill Clinton."
Ethical Issues
Then there are the real-world journalism issues that present themselves when a journalist covering technology is found out to be the author of a fake autobiographical blog in which he lambastes and otherwise offers opinions about technology and technologists.
"If he can turn the thing into a light form, if he can continue to present it as a light-hearted thing, then he probably can do that name-calling and that sort of thing because it's all in good fun," said Greenberg. "But, obviously, having one's pseudonym or anonymity taken away can be a deterrent. The whole reason people adopt these pseudonyms is to be able to say things more freely."
While the professor doesn't see a big ethical problem with Lyons carrying on, he said doing so will be pretty tricky. "It can be very hard to be both a serious journalist and a humor journalist or a satirist or even an opinion journalist at same time," said Greenberg.
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