As the New York Times, followed by just about everyone else is reporting this morning, the Fake Steve Jobs is in fact Dan Lyons, who wrote a notorious cover article in Forbes Magazine likening bloggers to lynch mobs and placing a significant nail into the coffin of Forbes as a credible news magazine.
It turns out that Lyons is going to write a book on his experience. I imagine it will go down on the great annals of book-writing history with Jason Blair's "Burning down my Master's House," which explained how a reporter lied and plagiarized during his tenure at the New York Times, or maybe it should be likened to Clifford Irving's hoax biography of Howard Hughes.
Anyone who wants to write a best-seller knows that controversy sells and the more outrageous it is, the more it sells. Throw in a famous person's name, like Steve Jobs, and it sells even more. Lyons will get his time on the talk shows for a while before he'll fall into the oblivion he so rightly deserves or so I would like to think.
Lyons, I am sure, will attempt to debunk blogging. In fact, he is more likely to debunk himself by missing a key point to why blogging is working so well. It is transparent. Lyons is not.
Like Blair and Irving, he does have a contrivance going. I hope he enjoys his time strutting and fretting on the stage before he and his book become yesterday's news.
