Valleywag: fake steve

The Genius Bar can help you only so much

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:22:04 PST

This photo, taken at the new 14th Street Apple Store, shows that the Genius Bar can solve computer malfunctions, but not wardrobe ones. Where's our promised "Apple Elites" now, Fake Steve? Best caption wins our spot in line. (Photo by Meredith Scardino)

The real untold story of the iPhone

Owen Thomas — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:03:03 PST

In its February issue, Wired promises "The Untold Story" of the iPhone. But as typical for the magazine, they instead deliver a rehash of things you mostly already know, spread over 3,336 lavish words. Here, instead, are 378 words, in bullet points, containing the truly juicy tidbits Wired writer Fred Vogelstein was able to turn up. My favorite? That when Steve Jobs gets really mad, he doesn't scream. He stares.

In the fall of 2006, in Apple's boardroom, the prototype flat-out didn't work. The phone dropped calls constantly. Jobs fixed the dozen or so people in the room with a level stare and said, "We don't have a product yet." The effect was even more terrifying than one of Jobs' trademark tantrums.
For those working on the iPhone, the next three months would be the most stressful of their careers. A product manager slammed the door to her office so hard that the handle bent and locked her in; it took colleagues more than an hour and some well-placed whacks with an aluminum bat to free her.
Just weeks before Macworld, Jobs had a prototype to show wireless boss Stan Sigman. Sigman, uncharacteristically effusive, called the iPhone "the best device I have ever seen."
About 40 percent of iPhone buyers are new to AT&T's rolls, and the iPhone has tripled the carrier's volume of data traffic in cities like New York and San Francisco.
In February 2005, in a midtown Manhattan hotel, Jobs laid out his plans before a handful of Cingular senior execs, including Sigman. Apple was prepared to consider an exclusive arrangement to get that deal done. But Apple was also prepared to buy wireless minutes wholesale and become a de facto carrier itself.
At one point, Jobs met with some executives from Verizon, who promptly turned him down.
Around Thanksgiving of 2005, eight months before a final agreement was signed, he instructed his engineers to work full-speed on the project. One insider estimates that Apple spent roughly $150 million building the iPhone.
Internally, the project was known as P2, short for Purple 2.
Whenever Apple executives traveled to Cingular, they registered as employees of Infineon, the company Apple was using to make the phone's transmitter.
Even the iPhone's hardware and software teams were kept apart: Hardware engineers worked on circuitry that was loaded with fake software, while software engineers worked off circuit boards sitting in wooden boxes.
By January 2007, when Jobs announced the iPhone at Macworld, only 30 or so of the most senior people on the project had seen it.

Real Steve (W.) meets Fake Steve (J.)

Owen Thomas — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:46:26 PDT

Dan Lyons, the faux Apple CEO blogger, is introduced by the real Steve Wozniak. Check Woz's manic but funny patter about Kathy Griffin, Fake Steve, and Apple.

The mindset of the Class of 2029

Nick Douglas — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 12:20:44 PDT

Every year, we at Beloit College publish a "mindset list" to identify the worldviews of the year's entering college freshmen. The "class of 2029" refers to students entering college this fall, in 2025. Most of these students are 18, which means they were born in 2007. For them, Anna Nicole Smith, Steve Irwin, Ray Charles, James Brown, Saddam Hussein, and Robin Williams's career have always been dead.

No one's ever worn a digital watch.
"I'm Rick James, bitch" is just something old people say.
To relax, they've always turned on the nightly news. The news has always been delivered by comedians.
They don't know what a LOLCat is or why it talks that way.
They've always been able to use a cell phone on a plane.
Tattoos have always been normal.
Mr. Rogers has never taken them to the Land of Make-Believe.
Good sitcoms have never had laugh tracks.
Apple has always been a big deal, as have Google and Facebook.
They've never paid for a classified ad.
They've never danced to "Numa Numa."
Who's Mario?
Katie Couric has still never been a respected news anchor.
Kids have always had their own phones.
They've never "missed" a TV show that they couldn't watch an hour later.
Movies have always come in the mail.
They've never licked a stamp.
Americans have always worried about Muslims.
They don't care if Tony Soprano died, if Ross and Rachel ever got together, who got to be a millionaire, or who was a Cylon.
Lindsay Lohan was never innocent.
They've never read "People" Magazine.
They don't remember Castro or why he was ever a big deal.
What's a mousepad?
"Lord of the Rings" looks fake and the effects are laughable.
Andy Samberg has always been a movie star.
The Olsen Twins have always been legal, but it's still creepy to want Mary-Kate.
There's never been smoking in restaurants.
Saturday Night Live's good stuff has always been made for the Internet.
Pop stars have always worked with rappers.
Perez Hilton has always been on TV.
Computers have never been beige.
Role-playing games have always been played on the Internet. What's a 20-sided die?
All TVs are "high definition."
They've never had to pull over for directions.
Cafes have always been a place to work on a laptop.
The "dot-com bust" means as much to them as the Great Depression.
Ipods have always come with a phone.
Global warming has always been a major voter issue, and Republicans have always acknowledged it.
Vice presidents have never been useless.
Quarters have never all looked the same.
Abe Vigoda is still alive.

Zuckerberg's Law: "Once every hundred years media changes."

Paul Boutin — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 05:19:33 PST

He's never going to live it down. Otherwise likable Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's ludicrous pronouncement is on its way to becoming his I-invented-the-Internet tagline. Why? Because he made the mistake of proclaiming Zuck's Law to a roomful of very senior people who work in — you got it — media. Mistaking his audience for Web 2.0 fanboys, Zuckerberg turned his big moment into a running joke among reporters and publicists alike. I heard it repeated several times at last night's San Francisco book party for Fake Steve author Dan Lyons. You know: "Once every hundred years, Forbes picks up the tab," etc. I'm pretty sure Zuckerberg didn't write the doofy line himself. But when you're CEO, you needn't parrot your publicists. My advice? Mark, don't take it back. Instead, repeat it over and over. Convince a critical mass of A-listers to abandon their blogs in favor of Facebook profiles, the new media for a new century. Here's a helpful hint: Some of those guys can be bought. (Photo by AP/Craig Ruttle)

The unmasking of Fake Steve Jobs

Nick Denton — Fri, 11 May 2007 10:03:03 PDT

Soon after Valleywag began digging into the identity of Silicon Valley's most mysterious author — the anonymous satirist behind Fake Steve Jobs, a spoof diary of the narcissistic Apple founder — a plaintive email arrived. "I understand why it's fun to wonder about who I am. But I'm writing to ask you to back off. Here's why. If people know who's dong the blog, it kind of ruins the fun for everyone. Not just for me but for all the readers." It's true: the authorship of the phony online diary has provided one of Silicon Valley's most amusing guessing games. Suspects have included technology writers such as Mark Stephens, who writes as Robert Cringeley, Apple insiders, and, ridiculously, Steve Jobs himself. The speculation has been as entertaining, to Silicon Valley, as was, to the Beltway punditocracy, the unmasking of the anonymous author of Primary Colors. But, all good mysteries need a conclusion; Valleywag, selfishly, would rather provide it, now, rather than wait at the mercy of the author's publishing schedule. The identity of Fake Steve Jobs is obvious, anyway. If you really don't want to know, stop reading NOW.

Before we expose the Apple chief executive's cheeky online impersonator, let's recap the evidence. First, the linguistic clues. The author's either British, or pretending to be British.

Fake Steve Jobs uses the word "chav", modern English slang for a lower-class man with no taste.
A BBC journalist is referred to as a Nigel,
Critics of Rupert Murdoch are described as "whingeing", rather than bitching, which would be the equivalent American English.
The nickname for London's Guardian newspaper, the Grauniad, is one that a long-time reader of Private Eye, a local gossip sheet, would use.
An American would write of a kid's soccer game, not a kid's soccer match.
Way too many references to British press, personalities, products and sterotypes: Tony Blair; the Inquirer; British stewardesses; a clip of Ricky Gervais; UK audio equipment.
Fake Steve Jobs' public face, for book and sponsorship deals, is Emma Parry, a British agent based in New York.

Second, the writer works for Wired magazine. It's not so much that Wired sponsors the site: that deal was offered to Weblogs Inc, and Gawker Media, among others. But Evan Hansen, editor-in-chief of Wired News, says he's been sworn to secrecy about the mystery writer, which would be most easily explained if the author was a colleague, who had confided in him. And both Wired and the Fake Steve Jobs site have not been able to resist writing about eachother, sometimes insultingly, as if this were one big insider joke. The cross-references also allow Wired writers to claim that this was a mystery hidden in plain sight; that there was no serious intent to deceive readers, or their bosses, or Apple.

Third, the author obviously knows Apple, and Steve Jobs, extremely well. The writing style was never designed to mimic Jobs' words; it's far too witty, and scurrillous. But the author captures the self-regard of Apple's legendarily arrogant founder. And he understands the man's strengths, as a product visioniary, and weaknesses, as an individual. Jobs is no passing acquaintance of this writer; his understanding could only come from obsession.

So, enough of the preamble. The identity of Fake Steve is obvious. (We thought, for a few hours, that the anonymous writer was Dylan Tweney, because he joined Wired at about the time that the magazine began its sponsorship of the Steve Jobs diary. He may have helped, but he's denied having the lead role. And it's conceivable other writers, such as Rob Beschizza of Wired, have helped.) Our bet: it's Leander Kahney, managing editor of Wired.com, and author of the Cult of Mac site. Kahney is a fabulously talented writer; he's fearless; a Londoner; a newspaper junkie who missed, badly, the British press; an audio nut; he has four kids, so plenty of experience with soccer matches; and he's a Mac fanatic. (See his Amazon author profile.)

And, the clincher: he has a new book coming out in early 2008: 'Chairman Steve's Little White Book'. For the book — subtitled 'The Leadership Secrets of Steve Jobs' — the anonymous blog, and the hoopla around the author's identity, would be a great marketing device. Sorry to mess with the scheduled unveiling. But, hey, Leander, you love the British-style press. This, as you know, is how it works.

A fake Steve Jobs pops up on Facebook

Owen Thomas — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:40:00 PDT

There's a "Steven P Jobs" on Facebook. But it's not Apple's CEO. How can I tell? The biographical details, which anyone can get from Wikipedia, are all correct. But the "About Me" section is a dead giveaway.

It reads, "Have a passion for really great products!" The exclamation point kills it for me. Add to that: He's not even in Facebook's Apple network. His wife, Laurene Powell-Jobs, and his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs both have Facebook profiles, and they aren't on his friends list. Sadly, 75 Apple employees, drawn to any electronic hint of their cult leader, are.

I'm left wishing Dan Lyons had been the one to pull this stunt. The original Fake Steve Jobs would have made this Facebook page so convincing I would have believed it. And gladly.

Apple created temporary store on Warner Bros. lot

Owen Thomas — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:40:00 PDT

A tipster reports that Apple admen at TBWA/Chiat/Day built a full-size replica of an Apple Store on the Warner Bros. lot, in total secrecy, over the Memorial Day weekend to film a commercial that will air for Steve Jobs's keynote June 9 at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. Why build a fake store when Apple has so many real ones it could film in for free? (Shown here, Apple's latest store design.) Shutting down a real store, as Apple did recently in Manhattan, likely draws too much attention. If true, this rumor goes to show the price Steve Jobs is willing to pay to stage a surprise. The tip:

Seen over Memorial Day weekend, Apple built a full scale store on a sound stage at the Warner Bros. lot in Los Angeles. On Memorial Day they proceeded to shoot a commercial that will be part of Steve's announcement on June 9, a la Steve's favorite team at TBWA/Chiat/Day. This was no small feat. This was a full scale and fully operable store, complete with laptops, iMacs, the kids pod, software and accessories on the shelf, functional genius bar. Everything you'd see at at the Apple store, was on the lot/soundstage (same one that The Perfect Storm was filmed on) in working order. The store took 2 days to build. Tear down was complete Monday evening (memorial day). Only a handful of people were allowed to stay for the shoot and no extras/actors were seen in the "store" when the shooting commenced.

(Photo by ifoApplestore.com)

Forbes editor Daniel Lyons is Fake Steve Jobs

Owen Thomas — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 14:56:14 PDT

The jig is up, the secret is out, the game is over: Forbes editor Dan Lyons is Fake Steve Jobs, the now-unmasked author of The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. Brad Stone of the New York Times, to my dismay, was the one to out Lyons as the faux Apple CEO. It was crushing. I've known for some time now that several Forbes employees were in on the secret. Lyons, as Fake Steve, even hinted at the outing in a post today: "My world, anyway, is about to change." My apologies to readers. But it makes perfect sense. Here are the not-so-coincidental similarities between Lyons's chosen enemies and Fake Steve's.

Freetards. Fake Steve has no love for Linux acolytes. And Daniel Lyons may be the only writer Linux acolytes hate more than Fake Steve. Now the objects of their wrath are revealed to be one and the same.
Microtards. First Lyons does the sober interview with Steve Ballmer, and then, as Fake Steve, tells us what the Microsoft CEO is really thinking.
Blogtards. Fake Steve has it out for bloggers like Robert Scoble and, um, yours truly and my boss. Lyons is the author of the much-maligned Forbes cover story "Attack of the Blogs!" Of course, now we know that Lyons is a blogtard himself — twice over. Welcome to the tardosphere, Dan-o.

Dan Lyons quits Fake Steve Jobs before the real Steve Jobs drops dead on him

Owen Thomas — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:40:00 PDT

In humor, timing is everything. And death just ain't that funny. That's why Dan Lyons is quitting the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog. True, he's planning to turn his Fake Steve Jobs schtick into a second book. And his new job as Newsweek's gadget columnist may require more decorous relations with Apple — note that Newsweek, usually the object of favored treatment by Apple PR, didn't get an early iPhone 3G to review. But the real reason why Lyons is dropping Fake Steve? Because the state of the real Apple CEO's health had Lyons scared.

Jobs's scary-skinny appearance at an Apple event earlier this summer had everyone talking, including Lyons. While there turned out to be a reasonable explanation for Jobs's frail frame — aftereffects of surgery for pancreatic cancer — and people with Jobs's specific ailment have a high survival rate, Lyons concluded that posing as a guy recovering from cancer just couldn't be humorous for much longer.

Hence his attempts to write as Fake Jerry Yang and a Google insider. None of the alternate personae really took. Just as well. Some thought that after the New York Times unmasked him last year, Lyons's blog wouldn't be as good. Instead, he just got better. As Lyons proved on his book tour for Options, his first Fake Steve novella, he is riotously funny as himself. Goodbye, Fake Steve Jobs; hello, Real Dan Lyons. Where have you been hiding?

Macworld 2008 Steve Jobs keynote

Owen Thomas — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:00:00 PST

Jordan Golson and I blogged live, but briefly, via Twitter from the Macworld 2008 expo at Moscone West in San Francisco. Read on for the full report:

Valleywag at Macworld 2008 liveblog

Newman wraps up with a crowd-pleaser from "Toy Story." Thanks Jobs that's over. 16 January 2007
Newman delivers an anticorporate rant. "But not this one," he says, meaning Apple. Thanks for clarifying! 16 January 2007
No "one more thing"? Apparently not. Randy Newman, who has scored films for Pixar, takes the stage to perform some songs. 16 January 2007
Still no financials? Jobs usually drops some hints on how Apple is doing as a business in his keynote. 16 January 2007
MacBook Air ad plays. Lyrics allude to rumor mill: "hoping I could learn what's true and fake." 16 January 2007
No optical CD/DVD drive in MacBook Air. Jobs makes pitch for discless computer: iTunes movie rentals, iPods instead of burning CDs, etc. 16 January 2007
Otellini and Jobs looked like they were going to make out. Hotter than a Core 2 Duo chip on stage! 16 January 2007
Intel created custom chip packaging — the wiring around the processor —for MacBook Air. CEO Paul Otellini says project began a year ago. 16 January 2007
MacBook Air offers "pricey" flash-memory drive as an option, which could boost the fortunes of memory-chip makers like Samsung. 16 January 2007
"There's something in the air." MacBook Air, "world's thinnest notebook" — new line between MacBook and MacBook Pro. 16 January 2007
Gianopulos talks about DVDs. Fox, as expected, announces iPod-ready digital copies on DVD discs, starting with "Family Guy" release. 16 January 2007
Correction: Gianopulos. Fox shows Homer Simpson in an iPod ad spoof. Is that a donut he's holding — or a DVD? 16 January 2007
Apple TV price drop: $229, down from $299. 16 January 2007
Jobs admits Apple TV was a failure. "Apple TV Take 2" — "no computer required," rent directly from your TV screen, including HD movies. 16 January 2007
Jobs, a Disney board member, features Disney's "Ratatouille" in presentation. 16 January 2007
1,000 movies by end of Feb. Films avail 30 days after DVD release. Rent for 24 hours, can transfer to iPods. Old movies $2.99. New $3.99. 16 January 2007
iTunes: 4 billion songs sold. 20 million sold on Christmas day. 125 million TV shows. 7 million movies: "did not meet our expectations." 16 January 2007
On Jobs's SMS short list: PR chief Katie Cotton, VP eng Bertrand Serlet, VP mktg Phil Schiller, Google CEO and Apple director Eric Schmidt. 16 January 2007
iPhone maps now include GPS-like location data. Still using Google Maps. 16 January 2007
Broadcast media get let in first — but Walt Mossberg used his clout to cut in line. "I'm VIP," he said, waved his badge and walked past. 16 January 2007

Leaked Macworld keynote reveals boring reality

Jordan Golson — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:28:01 PST

A document claiming to be a "rough outline" of Steve Jobs's Macworld keynote was leaked on Wikipedia last week and is now making the rounds. Paul Boutin and I disagree: He thinks it's unquestionably fake. I think it's plausibly real. But we both think so for the same reason: It's more than a bit boring, lacking the big-boom announcements that typically open and close a Macworld keynote. I think that adds to its verisimilitude. For one thing, the really secret stuff would never make it into a circulated draft — and the truth is that Macworld keynotes contain vast stretches of mundane material, sustained only by Steve Jobs's force of personality and the audience's eagerness to hear the big news. If it's a fake, I say it's a well-crafted one. Here's an analysis that shows why.

MacWorld January 2008 Keynote Rough Outline; draft 5 Greetings! Welcome to Moscone Center Quick Overview: iPod/iTunes - iPod has been extremely profitable for us this holiday season - Sales figures, market share - Our new models are doing better than ever - 3 iPod games released last month accidentally (supposed to be for today) - Another new game today: Chess - iTunes doing extremely well (sales figures/market share) - Today: 30 indie labels releasing their entire catalogs in iTunes Plus - Many more to follow in the next few months

iPod numbers are traditional at Macworld keynotes as Steve recaps the holiday season and releases some sales numbers ahead of the quarterly earnings call. The three iPod games released last month likely refer to Peggle, Bomberman and Sonic the Hedgehog which were released just before Christmas.

iPhone - Best iPod ever - Sales figures, market share - Sales beyond our wildest dreams - Much more than the 1% market share we asked for in January - Starting today: 8GB $399, 16GB $499 - Four times the memory as original iPhone for the same price - iPhone is coming to Japan in March with NTT DoCoMo - SDK is unveiled!

Pretty standard fare: The memory bump is a natural upgrade to match the sizes offered in the iPod Touch and we know that Apple has been in negotiations with NTT DoCoMo to be the Japanese distributor of the iPhone. The software development kit, the package that allows non-Apple developers to make software for the iPhone, has been in the works for months.

iPhone/iPod Touch SDK - Apps and Widgets - Using Cocoa with Objective C - Developers submit programs as source code, not executable - Specify iPhone or both iPhone/Touch (certain features iPhone only) - Set your own price: Apps $0-6.99, Widgets $0-$2.99 - Users buy/download in iTunes Wi-Fi Store / iTunes Store (Mac/PC) - Automatic updating wirelessly or docked
- Demonstration of exporting from XCode 3 to iTunes Store
- Submits source code to Apple for validation (make sure that people aren't abusing the system, prevent malware and viruses)
- If using microphone or GSM, iPhone only; otherwise, available for both iPhone and iPod Touch
- Apps can be free or up to $6.99; Widgets free or up to $2.99
- Developers recieve 70% of revenue for their products
- Licensed under Apple Mobile Software License
- Can download wirelessly from iTunes Wi-Fi Store or docked to computer from iTunes Store
- Demonstration of wirelessly downloading (and running) the app submitted earlier
- Apps and widgets can be rearranged on front screen; front screen scrolls to show all apps/widgets
- Resubmit updated versions of apps; when added to store, iPhone/Touch will ask you to update it next time you use it (or next time you dock the iPhone/Touch)
- Developers can get their hands on a beta version of the SDK tomorrow on ADC and start developing; final version due early February
- iTunes 7.6 and iPhone/iPod Touch Software update 1.3 allowing for Apps mid-February

We opined back in November that it would make sense for Apple to sell iPhone applications through the the iTunes Store — it would give the company control over possibly malicious apps and give access to yet another stream of revenue.

Example apps/widgets Apps:
- iChat (coming with 1.3 update) (AIM, Jabber/Google Talk)
- Quick demonstration
- RSS Feed Reader (coming with 1.3 update) (read feeds online or off)
- One of our partners made something cool: Last.fm (scrobble tracks played on iPhone/touch wirelessly without syncing w/ computer) Widgets:
- Dictionary (coming with 1.3 update) (quickly look up words, translate, use wikipedia)
- Quick demonstration
- Yellow/White Book (coming with 1.3 update) (search for contacts, add them to your address book directly from the app, will sync back with address book on your Mac/PC)
- Sports Ticker (coming with 1.3 update) (choose your sports and teams, get updates on their progress)
- Another partner: Twitter (update your Twitter on the fly, see your friends tweets)

- Try these out on the show floor today

Nothing notable here, except for the partnership with Twitter. Many iPhone users I know are avid Twitter users, via the text-message interface. A direct Web app would be a welcome addition.

Mac
- Sales are getting better and better every day
- Hardware sales figures/market share
- Leopard released October; doing spectacularly
- Sales figures/market share
- Selling extremely well; estimated to overtake Tiger in terms of marketshare by June if you only count the new Macs that come with it preinstalled; even quicker if you include boxed copies
- 10.5.2 out today
- many bug fixes, also addressing a lot of issues and complaints users had such as list view with stacks and certain HIG non-compliance issues
New MacBooks!
- What would MacWorld be without a new Mac? (sorry about last year)
- Completely redesigned MacBook
- Completely aluminum body like MacBook Pro
- 13" screen at 1440x900
- Two colors: Black and Silver
- Looks gorgeous at 0.8" thin
- A major feat of engineering
- patents abound
- DVD drive pops open on side when eject button is pressed
- New on all notebooks and iMac: iSight HD (720p)
- New backlit keyboard based on recent Apple Keyboard revisions (keys slightly lighter than that of laptop casing, colorwise)
- New matching MagSafe cable (Aluminum ends, cord color matches that of keyboard)
- New matching Apple Remote (slightly smaller with larger overall buttons)
- Intel GMA X3100 graphics
- 3 models
- Completely phasing out the combo drive on all product lines today
- BTO models can upgrade all the way to 2.6GHz/4GB Memory/320GB hard drive
- 4.5 hours of battery life
- Starting at $1199

This would be the subnotebook that the Apple fanboys (myself included) have been talking about for months.

Product Refreshes
- Refreshing Mac Pro and Mac mini today
- Mac Pro now with Penryn!
- Base model 2x2.8GHz dual core/1GB/NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB/250GB(1x250GB)/1x16x double-layer SuperDrive
- Upgradeable to 2x3.2GHz quad core/16GB/NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB/4TB(4x1TB)/2x16x double-layer SuperDrives
- Starting at $2,499
- Mac mini gets slight speed bumps and double-layer SuperDrive in all models
- Base model 2.0GHz IC2D/1GB/100GB
- BTO Upgradeable to 2.4GHz IC2D/4GB/320GB
- Starting at $599

Here's where this draft starts going off-track. Apple introduced the Mac Pro refresh last week during CES. Additionally, the specs quoted here are different than the ones in the refreshed machines. Apple watches have been claiming that the Mac Mini would get discontinued for years, but it has stuck around. I suspect it fills a small niche for Apple and doesn't disrupt the rest of the line, so why not keep selling it?

One More Thing
- Been brewing for a while
- YouTube's been in Apple TV and iPhone/iPod touch: now it's in iTunes
- Download YouTube videos straight to iTunes or from iPhone/iPod Touch for later offline viewing (sync back to computer)
- Coming in iTunes 7.6 and iPhone/iPod Touch 1.3 updates
Thanks for coming, and enjoy the expo!

Well, that's an underwhelming "one more thing," but remember that the "one more thing" at last summer's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference was YouTube on the iPhone. In an informal poll of friends with iPhones, hardly any of them use the YouTube app with any regularity.

More noteworthy than what is in this outline, is what isn't. There is no mention of the widely publicized iTunes Store movie rentals deal with 20th Century Fox and Disney. This deal will almost certainly be announced Tuesday. Why isn't it in this outline? Likely because it wasn't nailed down until late December. This, too, suggests to me this could be a real, outdated outline, since a faked version would have included the deal.

And if this outline is real, it explains another mystery: Apple's sudden Mac Pro revamp during CES, a week before Macworld. Dropping the Mac Pro from the keynote and swapping in movie rentals as a "one more thing" could be an easy last-minute change.

So is this keynote outline real? We'll likely never know; keynote outlines, according to insiders, change up to the last minute. And in a way it doesn't matter. Seeing a keynote rendered as a dry outline, listing new products as bullet points, not fabulous objects of desire, just reminds us how much Steve Jobs adds to the show.

The new media elite

Nick Denton — Wed, 02 May 2007 10:44:26 PDT

The organizers of The Lobby, the latest addition to the conference circuit, have slapped on a password to the guest list for their October schmoozefest. But not before Valleywag grabbed the names. It's a who's who of the new new media, including everyone from the founders of Google to the boss of Reuters. (For social climbers, and conspiracy theorists, all 258 names, after the jump.) Of course, only some portion of the invitees will actually attend; and there are some curious omissions. David Hornik, the prime mover behind the off-the-record event in Hawaii, is, occasionally, a venture capitalist. But, for the sake of appearances, at least, shouldn't he have invited competitors such as Mike Moritz, the Sequoia partner who backed both Yahoo and Google? There are no partners from Sequoia, Accel, Benchmark or Kleiner Perkins, on the list.

Jay Adelson, CEO, Digg
J Allard, VP, Microsoft
Dave Alles, Media Center Extender team, Microsoft
Dr. Phillip Alvelda, Chairman and CEO, MobiTV
Chris Anderson, Editor In Chief, Wired Magazine
Marc Andreessen, Founder, Ning
Andrew Anker, SVP, Six Apart
Mike Arrington, Founder and Editor In Chief, TechCrunch
Adam Bain, EVP Technology, Fox Interactive Media
Mitchell Baker, CEO, Mozilla
Jim Bankoff, Former EVP Product, AOL
Raanan Bar-Cohen, Director of Product Strategy, Dow Jones
Jeff Barr, Web Services Evangelist, Amazon
Peter Barrett, CTO, MSTV, Microsoft
John Battelle, CEO, FM Publishing
Joe Belfiore, Corporate VP, eHome Group, Microsoft
Chris Bell, Director of iTunes, Apple
Rob Bennett, GM, MSN Entertainment, Microsoft
Brad Berens, Editor, iMedia
Shana Berger, Founder, Readymade
Barak Berkowitz, CEO, Six Apart
Jeff Berman, SVP, MySpace (Fox)
Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon
Angela Biever, Vice President, Intel Capital
Jeff Blackburn, VP Worldwide Business Development, Amazon
Michael Bloom, VP, Digital Music, MTV Networks
Shelby Bonnie, Co-Founder, CNET
Steve Boom, SVP, Broadband & Mobile, Yahoo
Emmanuelle Borde, Vice President, Sony Pictures Digital
Danah Boyd, PhD Candidate, School of Information (SIMS) at Berkeley
Paul Bricault, SVP, William Morris Consultants
Sergey Brin, Co-Founder & President, Technology, Google
Don Buckley, SVP of Interactive Marketing, Warner Brothers
Michael Buhr, Sr. Director of Corporate Strategy, eBay
Brett Bullington, Board Member, Flickr, JotSpot, Oodle, Wink
Katie Burke Mitic, VP, Mareting and Operations, Skyrider
Stewart Butterfield, Co-Founder, Flickr (Yahoo)
Jason Calacanis, Entrepreneur in Action, Sequoia Capital
Garrett Camp, Co-Founder, StumbleUpon
John Caplan, President, Ford Models
Sean Carey, EVP of Digital Distribution and Production Acquisition, Sony
David Carson, CEO, Heavy
Mike Cassidy, CEO, Xfire (Viacom)
Stan Chudnowski, CTO, Ooga Labs
Jeff Clavier, Founder, SoftTech VC
Betty Cohen, President and CEO, Lifetime Entertainment Services
June Cohen, Director of Media, TED Conference
Kevin Cohen, SVP, Strategic Planning, Turner Broadcasting Systems
Matt Cohler, VP Strategy and Business Operations, Facebook
Beth Comstock, President, Digital Media and Market Developement NBC Universal
Tony Conrad, CEO, Sphere
Tom Conrad, CTO, Pandora
Kevin Conroy, EVP of Product, Marketing and Distribution, AOL
Andrew Conru, Founder and CEO, Friend Finder Network
Ron Conway, Founder, Angel Investors
Toby Coppel, SVP Corporate Development, Yahoo
Dick Costolo, Co-Founder and CEO, Feedburner
Jonathan Coulton, Founder, JonathanCoulton.com
James Currier, CEO, Ooga Labs
Sky Dayton, CEO, Helio
Ethan Diamond, Co-Founder, Oddpost (Yahoo)
Craig Donato, Founder and CEO, Oodle
Rael Dornfest, Founder and CEO, Stikit
Lisa Ellis, EVP, Sony BMG
Tony Fadell, SVP, iPod Division, Apple
Caterina Fake, Co-Founder, Flickr (Yahoo)
Iggy Fanlo, CEO, AdBright
Josh Felser, Co-Founder and CEO, Grouper (Sony)
Shana Fisher, SVP of Strategy and M&A, Interactive Corp.
Erik Flannigan, VP of Programming, AOL
Jason Flom, Chairman and CEO, Virgin Records
Bill Flora, Designer, Zune, Microsoft
Tod Francis, General Partner, Shasta Ventures
Lisa Gansky, Co-Founder, Ofoto, GNN
Brad Garlinghouse, SVP, Yahoo
Dave Geary, SVP Business Development, BetZip
Bernard Gershon, SVP and General Manager, ABC News Digital Media
John Girard, CEO, Clickability
Steve Glenn, Founder and CEO, LivingHomes
Tom Glocer, CEO, Reuters
Shawn Gold, SVP, Marketing and Content, MySpace (Fox)
Seth Goldstein, Founder, AttentionSoft
Paul Graham, Founder, Y Combinator
Martin Green, SVP, CNET
Jordan Greenhall, CEO, Divx
Joe Greenstein, CEO, Flixster
Jim Greer, Founder and CEO, Kongregate
Andre Haddad, SVP Product, eBay
Brad Handler, Co-Founder, Exclusive Resorts
Heather Harde, CEO, TechCrunch
Matt Haughey, Founder, MetaFilter
Rob Hayes, General Partner, First Round Capital
Marc Hedlund, Co-Founder, Wesabe
Scott Heiferman, CEO, Meetup
Jay Higginbotham, VP New Initiatives, Turner Broadcasting Systems
Brent Hoberman, Chairman and Chief Strategic Officer, Lastminute.com
Reid Hoffman, Founder, LinkedIn
Auren Hoffman, Founder and CEO, Rapleaf
James Hong, Founder, HotOrNot
Bradley Horowitz, VP Product Strategy, Yahoo
Arriana Huffington, CEO, Huffington Post
Chad Hurley, Co-Founder and CEO, YouTube (Google)
Joi Ito, Board Member, Mozilla, Creative Commons
Michael Jackson, President of Programming, Interactive Corp.
Mark Jacobsen, Managing General Partner, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures
Daniel James, CEO, Three Rings
James Joaquin, Venture Partner, Bridgescale
Rob Kalin, Founder and CEO, Etsy
Mitch Kapor, Chairman, Open Source Applications Foundation
Philip Kaplan, Founder, AdBright
Alex Kazim, SVP, Skype (eBay)
Patrick Keane, EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, CBS Interactive
Kourosh Kharimkany, GM, Wired.com
Ben Kilgore, Xbox Live, Microsoft
Zach Klein, VP Development, CollegeHumor (IAC)
George Kliavkoff, Chief Digital Officer, NBC Universal
Josh Kopelman, Managing Director, First Round Capital
Joe Kraus, Co-Founder and CEO, JotSpot (Google)
Tariq Krim, Founder and CEO, Netvibes
Justin LaFrance, Co-Founder, StumbleUpon
Roger Lang, CEO, TransAria
Jim Lanzone, CEO, Ask.com
Doug Leeds, VP Products, Ask.com
Max Levchin, Founder and CEO, Slide
Jordan Levin, Partner, Generate
Ross Levinsohn, Former President, Fox Interactive Media
Peter Levinsohn, President, Fox Interactive Media
Ellen Levy, Director, MediaX (Stanford)
Jeremy Liew, General Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners
John Lilly, COO, Mozilla
Jakob Lodwick, CTO, CollegeHumor (IAC)
Rob Lord, Founder and CEO, Songbird
Nancy Lublin, CEO, Do Something
Zander Lurie, SVP, Strategy and Development, CNET
Eric Lunt, Co-Founder and CTO, FeedBurner
Joel Makower, CEO, Green World Media
Om Malik, Founder and CEO, GigaOm
Mike Marquez, VP Corporate Development, CBS Interactive
Chris Maxcy, VP Business Development, YouTube (Google)
Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products and User Experience, Google
Ian McCarthy, VP Product Marketing, Orb Networks
Judy McGrath, Chairman and CEO, MTV Networks
Fred McIntyre, VP of Video Products, AOL
Mary Meeker, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley
Vivek Mehra, General Partner, August Capital
Rick Mueller, President, LiveNation
Chris Michel, CEO, Affinity Labs
Jon Miller, Former CEO, AOL
Perkins Miller, SVP, NBC Universal
Louis Monier, Distinguished Engineer, Google
Bob Morgan, VP and GM, Shozu
Sean Moriarty, President and CEO, Ticketmaster
Steve Mosko, President, Sony Pictures Television
Walt Mossberg, Founder, D: All Things Digital
Rajeev Motwani, Professor, Stanford Universirty, Advisor, Google
Matt Mullenweg, Founder, Wordpress
Ashwin Navin, President and COO, BitTorrent
Steve Newhouse, Chairman, CondeNet
Craig Newmark, Founder, Craig's List
Kent Nichols, Creator, Ask A Ninja
Martin Nisenholtz, SVP Digital Media, New York Times
Elliot Noss, CEO, Tuckows
Mathieu Nouzareth, CEO, Boonty
Pierre Omidyar, Founder, eBay
Tim O'Reilly, CEO, O'Reilly Publishing
Thomas Oscherwitz, Chief Privacy Officer, ID Analytics
Larry Page, Co-Founder & President, Products, Google
DJ Patil, Corporate Architect, eBay
Sunil Paul, Angel Investor
Gil Penchina, CEO, Wikia
Chris Petrovic, VP Busines Development, Playboy
Peter Pham, VP Business Development, Photobucket
Jeremy Philips, SVP, News Corp.
Mark Pincus, Founder, Tribe
Anil Podduturi, Supervising Producer, MTV Digital Media
Ariel Poler, Founder and CEO, TextMarks
Will Poole, SVP, Microsoft
Geoff Prentice, VP Strategic Partners and Corporate Development, Skype
Arvind Rajan, President and CEO, Grassroots Enterprises
Ted Rheingold, Co-Founder and CEO, Dogster
David Richter, VP and General Counsel, Divx Networks
Danny Rimer, General Partner, Index Ventures
Narendra Rocherolle, CEO, 30 Boxes
Antonio Rodriguez, CEO, Tabblo
Scott Roesch, VP and General Manager, Atom Films
Kevin Rose, Founder and Chief Architect, Digg
Philip Rosedale, Founder and CEO, Linden Labs (Second Life)
Steve Rosenbaum, CEO, Magnify Media
Richard Rosenblat, CEO, Demand Media
Bruce Rosenblum, President, Warner Brothers Television Group
Dan Rosensweig, Former COO, Yahoo
Sean Ryan, CEO, Meez
Kevin Ryan, Co-Founder and CEO, ShopWiki
Adam Rymer, SVP, Digital Platforms, Universal Pictures
Chris Sacca, Head, Special Initiatives, Google
Matt Sanchez, CEO, VideoEgg
Scott Sangster, Director, Strategy and Development, Disney Interactive Group
Chris Satchell, GM, Game Development, Xbox, Microsoft
Joshua Schachter, Founder, Delicious
Toni Schneider, CEO, Wordpress
Munjal Shah, Founder and CEO, Riya
Tina Sharkey, CEO, BabyCenter
Kevin Shields, GM, Media Center, Microsoft
Willy Shih, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School
Ram Shriram, Board Member, Google
H.B. Siegel, Technical Director, IMDb (Amazon)
Dave Sifry, Founder and CEO, Technorati
Josh Silverman, CEO, Shopping.com
Quincy Smith, President, CBS Interactive
Geoff Smith, Co-Founder, StumbleUpon
Megan Smith, Director, New Business Development and Strategy, Google
Rick Smolan, CEO, Against All Odds Productions
Gregg Spiridellis, Co-Founder and CEO, JibJab
Danah Stalder, SVP, Marketing and Business Operations, PayPal
Mark Stevens, Partner, Fenwick & West
Seth Sternberg, Co-Founder and CEO, Meebo
Lisa Stone, Co-Founder, BlogHer
Jeremy Stoppleman, Founder and CEO, Yelp
Kara Swisher, Founder, D: All Things Digital
Dan Surratt, EVP Digital Media, Lifetime Networks
Craig Syverson, Founder and CEO, Grunt Media
David Sze, General Partner, Greylock Capital
Peter Thiel, President, Clarium Capital
Scott Teissler, CIO and CTO, Turner Broadcasting Systems
Selina Tobaccawala, SVP, Product and Technology, Ticketmaster Europe
Gina Trapani, Guru, LifeHacker
Bill Trenchard, Chairman, LiveOps
Ben Trott, Co-Founder and CTO, Six Apart
Mena Trott, Co-Founder and President, Six Apart
Owen Van Natta, COO, Facebook
Yossi Vardi, Chairman, International Technologies
Michael Van Swaaij, Chief Strategy Officer, eBay
Martin Varsavsky, Founder and CEO, Fon
Jeff Veen, Founder, MeasureMap (Google)
Steve Venuto, Partner, Orrick
Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia
Charlie Walk, President, Epic Records
Hunter Walk, Manager, Google Video, Google
Ted Wang, Partner, Fenwick & West
Paul Wehrley, VP of Strategic Operations, Ask.com
Mark Weinberg, Director of Engineering, Zune, Microsoft
Jeff Weiner, SVP of Search, Yahoo
Steve Weinstein, President and CEO, MovieLabs
Alex Welch, Founder and CEO, Photobucket
Kara Welker, Partner, Generate
Denmark West, EVP, Chief of Operations, MTV Networks
Tim Westergren, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Pandora
Eric Wheeler, CEO, Neo@Ogilvy
Evan Williams, Founder, Obvious Corp. (Twitter)
Luke Wood, Head of A & R, Universal Music
Andrea Wong, EVP, Alternative Programming, ABC
Will Wright, Creator, The Sims, Spore
Sam Yagan, Co-Founder and CEO, OKCupid
Jerry Yang, Co-Founder and Chief Yahoo!, Yahoo
Jim Young, Co-Founder, HotOrNot
Niklas Zennstrom, Founder, Skype (eBay), Joost
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook
Mitch Zuklie, Partner, Orrick

Newsweek reporter: Yahoo PR "lying sacks of s---"

Owen Thomas — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:20:00 PST

Dan Lyons is shocked, shocked that Yahoo's PR team lied to him about how long CEO Jerry Yang would stay in the job. PR people routinely lie; it's part of the job description. But the good ones don't get caught. Lyons, Newsweek's tech columnist, interviewed Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock less than a month before Monday's announcement that Yang would step down, and Bostock loudly declared Yang was here to stay. One would think no one would be more cynical about the world of tech PR than the man who savaged Apple's spinmeister when he impersonated CEO Steve Jobs in a satirical blog. Lyons is no longer writing as Fake Steve Jobs, but as the real Dan Lyons, he occasionally summons up the old savagery. Here's what he says about the flacks who deceived him about Yang's employment status, as well as a now-scotched advertising deal with Google:

I’d never dealt much with Yahoo before, and I was stunned by their PR operators — they’re really an unsavory bunch. During that same reporting this crack team of lying sacks of shit put one of Yahoo’s attorneys in Washington on the phone to tell me, over and over, the true “inside story” of what was going on with the Google deal, which was, he informed me, that the deal with Google was a sure thing, definitely going to happen, no way in hell is the deal not going to happen, there are no real objections from the regulators, they’re fine with it, the objections from advertisers are not an issue, blah blah blah. Then that deal fell apart. And now Jerry Yang is out on his ass. The take-away: Do not believe a word that Yahoo says. Ever.

And in case Newsweek's handwringingly sanctimonious editors make Lyons pull the blog post in the morning, here's a screenshot:

For good measure, Lyons also slapped Kara Swisher, the thoroughly self-involved AllThingsD editor who broke the story about Yang's departure.

The hunt goes on

Nick Denton — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:23:43 PDT

AAAAAAAARGH! Leander Kahney, our prime suspect as the anonymous writer behind Fake Steve Jobs, just went on the record to deny authorship of the spoof online diary of Apple's legendary founder. Kahney — who's managing editor of Wired.com and author of a forthcoming tongue-in-cheek book on the Apple boss' management wisdom — finally wrote in. "Wow, you accumulated so much evidence, I'm half convinced myself. Unfortunately, I'm not fake steve, and I've no idea who he is. The only one here who knows is the EIC evan hanson (he cuts the sponsorship checks) and he's not saying." Fake Steve Jobs, whoever you are: you are seriously messing with my head. But I will hunt you down.

Whole Foods CEO proud to be an Internet blowhard

Tim Faulkner — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:00:05 PDT

John Mackey, the eccentric chief executive of flabbergastingly expensive grocery chain Whole Foods Market, has been exposed, the Wall Street Journal reports, for posting comments on Yahoo Finance message boards cheerleading himself and the company he co-founded, and bashing then-competitor Wild Oats. How long has this gone on? Eight years, which is plenty of time for him, in theory, to boost Whole Foods' stock price and dent Wild Oats' enough so that his company could take over its rival, in a deal that's now drawing scrutiny from the government. Illegal? Who knows. Arrogant, narcissistic, foolish, and compulsive? You bet, and that's why we love it.

Mackey's cheerleading, under the moniker "Rahodeb," for Whole Foods was enthusiastic and unconstrained. In January of 2005, he predicted:

13 years from now Whole Foods will be a $800+ stock before splits."

In the last year and a half, the stock has fallen nearly 50 percent after its last stock split. (In his long-winded blog defense, Mackey responds, "My opinions are just that — opinions. I am often wrong." No kidding.)

But we'll leave his financial comments for analysis by FTC and SEC regulators. What really impresses are Mackey's comments about himself. He's got a mancrush on himself:

"I like Mackey's haircut. I think he looks cute!"

Impressed by his own accomplishments:

"While I'm not a 'Mackey groupie, I do admire what the man has accomplished."

On his blog, now speaking as himself, for himself, and about himself, he defends his high self-opinion as personal drive — just like most narcissists:

"I have been called both 'arrogant' and a 'fool' most of my life. I prefer to think of myself as self-confident and committed to my ideals."

We all have our preferences.

The strangest defense offered by the CEO does not surface on his blog, but rather in a list of FAQs at the corporate website related to the pending FTC scrutiny of the Wild Oats acquisition:

"Who is "rahodeb" and why does the FTC quote this person?"

Mackey casts an online fictitious persona as normal and appropriate behavior. It's as if Rahodeb is Mackey's own personal Fake Steve, as if Mackey can remove all responsibility by casting Rahodeb off as a crazed multiple personality out of his control. If so, that would make Rahodeb the one thing Mackey, the ultimate control freak, believes he can't command by sheer force of personality.

Owen Thomas is the Valleywag

Nick Denton — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:04:15 PDT

Owen Thomas, the Business 2.0 editor whom we've lured to run Valleywag, is all smiles. But don't be deceived. This Silicon Valley gossip rag, after he takes over in July as managing editor, will remain as obnoxious as ever. You see, Thomas isn't just a veteran of business journalism, with excellent sources in the tech industry (most of which he will burn). The superficially jolly writer was, in an earlier life, one of the contributors to Suck, the legendary site that pioneered web snark. Here's coverage on All Things Digital and Gigaom — Valleywag snags an editor from Business 2.0. After the jump, for the Valleywag-watchers, the highlights of my own seven months on Valleywag. And, this being a critical site, some lowlights.

LOWLIGHTS

Facing the irate fans of Nick Douglas, after firing him as Valleywag editor
Identifying Fake Steve Jobs, the author of the spoof online diary of the Apple chief exec, and getting it wrong
Guessing again, and getting it wrong again
Pretending to laugh off the anonymous diarist's use of the verb "dentoned" to describe a story fucked up
Getting the scoop on the detention, by one of the Valley's most publicity-mongering execs, of a reporter — and nobody cared
Hounding financially troubled Red Herring, and the magazine's incompetent publisher — and nobody cared

HIGHLIGHTS

Pricking the ridiculous hype around Second Life, Linden Lab's virtual world
Calling bullshit on the puffed-up stats of ad-hungry startups
Tweaking Techcrunch's Michael Arrington
Tweaking hyper-networker Auren Hoffman
Tweaking 19-year-old guru, Ben Casnocha
Making fun of the extra-curricular activities of Tim Draper, the singing venture capitalist
Winding up Steve Jurvetson, the most thin-skinned VC of them all
Calling on Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr to retire
The obituary of Yahoo's Terry Semel
Waving goodbye to Lloyd Braun, Yahoo's Hollywood boss
Being called an "evil genius" by Fred Wilson.
Being called simply "evil" by Michael Arrington
Finding a picture of Larry Page's home on Google's new neighborhood walkthrough
Getting a jump on Mahalo's launch, and funding, despite Jason Calacanis' efforts to mislead
Tracking the hunt for the missing python at Google's New York complex
Breaking the news that Myspace was acquiring Photobucket
Breaking the news of Mybloglog's sale to Yahoo
23 and Me, Anne Wojcicki's new personal genetics startup
And her engagement to Google's Sergey Brin, which Valleywag had first
The accident-prone past of Sean Parker, Silicon Valley's bad boy
Way more about Peter Thiel and his friends than the Valley financier can handle — and more to come, before I sign off
Getting the best out of Nick Douglas
And, hopefully, these stories had something to do with a surge in Valleywag's audience. et me toot my horn here for a minute, pageviews up 210% from October to May. [See below.]
Handing over Valleywag, finally — it was beginning to feel like the occupation of Iraq, a quick one-month project, which turned into a costly long-term occupation, with no exit plan
Handing over to Owen Thomas. The coverage of Silicon Valley has been a labor of love, as well as hate. It would have been hard to give up Valleywag to just anybody. Owen Thomas is the first person I ever approached about the job. And I hope he's the last.

New iCal exposes complexity of space-time continuum

Paul Boutin — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 15:38:12 PST

So, I updated my Macs to the new Leopard operating system, then synced my calendars with Apple's .Mac online service. You can see the results. Fake Steve Jobs has actually acknowledged there are bugs, which makes me wonder if Leopard hasn't Time Machined me into some alternate universe. iCal is cool — my stupid Vista PC can only find one of my brother's birthdays next week. Piece of junk. My new calendar makes total sense to anyone with a basic grasp of string theory.

Google misses second-quarter earnings -- who's taking the fall?

Owen Thomas — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:06:37 PDT

Success has many fathers; failure is an orphan. Or so the saying goes. Google's second-quarter earnings — how to put this delicately? — sucked. At least compared to Wall Street's predictably overhyped expectations. Profits rose 28 percent, but that wasn't enough, and the stock fell 5 percent in after-hours trading, which means someone's got to take the fall. I dialed into Google's conference call, and listened closely to who did most of the talking. When it's bad news, the chief financial officer usually gets stuck with the unpleasant job, and sure enough, that's what happened, with CEO Eric Schmidt quickly handing the call over to CFO George Reyes and flipping tough questions to his colleagues. That tells me even Google insiders thought it was a bad quarter, too. Also on the call: Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and top executives Jonathan Rosenberg and Omid Kordestani.

2:27 p.m. Pacific Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray, the analyst who's drawn a fake blog of his own, gets the last question, asking about Google's efforts in China. Schmidt uses his favorite word, "accelerating," to describe Google's place in the market. He also mention's Google's "tenacity." Translation: It's going to take years for Google to improve its market share in China significantly. And with that, the call wraps up.

2:19 p.m. Pacific "There are lots and lots of rumors, which is always very exciting," says Eric Schmidt. He's talking about Google's wireless plans, of course, but I'm strongly considering repurposing it as a Valleywag blurb.

2:16 p.m. Pacific Was the headcount cost primarily driven by sales hires? Kordestani talks about a reorganization of the salesforce to get them to sell more than just search ads. That's got to be expensive, and a reorganized salesforce is usually less productive. This might explain some of Google's overhiring and the resultant earnings miss.

2:11 p.m. Pacific Omid Kordestani, Google's top sales executive, appears to be a convert to the cult of "conversational marketing," claiming that YouTube allows for "two-way conversations." Sure, if you consider juvenile YouTube comment threads to be a form of conversation.

2:08 p.m. Pacific Did a Google executive on the call just belch? Seriously, people. It's an earnings call. Have some respect.

2:02 p.m. Pacific Schmidt dodges a question about why paid clicks are flat, dumping the question in SVP Jonathan Rosenberg's lap. Rosenberg claims that paid click growth was hurt by seasonality. Which is it? Seasonally flat, or accelerating? Brin pops in and adds that tweaks to make ads more targeted also kept the growth down.

2:00 p.m. Pacific Eric Schmidt takes over again, trying to wrap up by claiming that Google's growth is "accelerating." Really? Even for a Ph.D. in computer science, apparently, math is hard.

1:58 p.m. Pacific Page starts talking about how Google works with software developers. Sadly, unlike manic Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, he does not start yelling, "Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers!"

1:56 p.m. Pacific Cofounder Larry Page takes over from Brin. Even he can't resist teasing Brin about searching for 1960s IBM equipment. He's talking about YouTube's partnership to put videos on the iPhone, and he says, "You can waste very many hours and also enjoy useful content like mainframe videos [on the iPhone]."

1:54 p.m. Pacific Just as Google started disclosing "paid clicks," a measure of the size of its advertising business, Brin reveals that it's now allowing advertisers to buy pay-per-action ads — in other words, paying Google for ads by the lead or sale. Curious if the company will start disclosing the number of actions, too.

1:51 p.m. Pacific Brin talks up two of Google's worst-named products: iGoogle, a personalized homepage, and Gadgets, customized content modules that appear on iGoogle. (Most people in the industry call those modules "widgets," which makes Brin's peculiar parlance for them annoying.)

1:48 p.m. Pacific Now Sergey Brin takes the horn. He talks up "universal search," which is the technology by which Google gives its own products — YouTube, Google Maps, and so on — privileged positions in Google's search results. He describes how he found a YouTube video about a 1960s IBM mainframe as an example of how mainstream consumers will benefit. Rrrrrright.

1:46 p.m. Pacific It almost sounds like CFO George Reyes is breathing a bit heavily. Everything okay, George? I didn't think things were that bad. A deep breath right after he gives Google's new headcount figure: 13,748 Googlers.

1:41 p.m. Pacific Schmidt fesses up: Google has overhired, causing costs to rise. He says the company is going to be watching headcount going forward. Google, no longer Silicon Valley's hiring machine? That's a frightening thought. Or perhaps comforting for startups trying to recruit engineers. Sure enough, Schmidt wraps up his comments in record time and hands the call to Reyes, who has to dissect the bad news for analysts and investors.

1:39 p.m. Pacific Eric Schmidt begins his comments. He's hesitant and stumbles a bit before trying to claim that the results were "strong." The most positive thing he says is that Google's main search website performed well. What he doesn't get to right away: Paid clicks, the way Google makes moeny from advertising, were stagnant from the first quarter to the second quarter.

1:37 p.m. Pacific Call is starting. On the call: CEO Eric Schmidt, CFO George Reyes, cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and top executives Jonathan Rosenberg and Omid Kordestani. It's the usual crew for a Google earnings call.

1:35 p.m. Pacific Want to know why Google missed earnings? Look no further than its operating expenses, which mostly consist of payroll and data-center costs. They're now 31 percent of revenue, up from 27 percent in the first quarter. That's a big jump, percentage-wise. Operating expenses grew by about 25 percent, while revenues only grew 6 percent quarter-over-quarter. Scary. Expect Wall Street analysts to start talking about how Google needs to get its costs under control.

1:27 p.m. Pacific Waiting for the call to start. Google's revenues? $3.87 billion. Or as Dr. Evil might say, "Three point eight-seven BILLLLLLION DOLLARS!" Of course, I'm not comparing Google to Dr. Evil. Google actually paid out more than $1 billion to its AdSense distribution partners. You know that's funding a lot of Web 2.0 keggers.

Geek out: Martha Stewart and John Cusak hit the D Conference

Nick Douglas — Wed, 31 May 2006 12:31:58 PDT

Journos Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher had a grand time hosting the Wall Street Journal's D Conference, or at least they've learned to fake it. Reporter Dan Farber has a write-up at ZDNet, and he kindly lent his event photos. Here they are, misinterpreted.

"Looks great, doesn't he?" says Melinda Gates. "I left him alone at Bath and Body Works, and he picked himself a moisturizer."

Damn it, if Walt Mossberg hears one more story about that stinking John Markoff, he's switching to hard liquor.

Jean Louis Gassee: "I worked at Apple for nine years, and honestly, Steve's feet are this huge."

Martha's only smiling because she thinks that's Daler Mehndi.

After the jump, Mr. High Fidelity looks for a cooler conversationalist.

ZDNet king Eric Hippeau to serial entrepreneur Josh Felser: "Oh, my unbuttoned shirt is no accident, Josh. Let's dump this dump and go...share some war stories."

Lotus founder Mitch Kapor tells Answers.com founder Bob Rosenschein: "There's the 98-pound Dictionary.com guy. Let's go throw wine in his face."

Martha Stewart and her boyfriend, the man who built Word and Excel, Charles Simonyi. (They really are dating.)

The crowd was delighted as Walt and Kara performed a scene from A Streetcar Named Desire. "Listen, baby, when we first met - you and me - you thought I was common. Well, how right you was. I was common as dirt."

"Walt. WALT. Put down the Jack Daniel's and let's stop the 'I'll kill that ass Markoff' talk."

AOL exec Jason Calacanis pulls the Kawaii Anime Girl sign we all know and love. Meanwhile, the extinguished body of VC Yossi Vardi slumps in its chair.

"And we'll have a farm...with ethanol-fueled vehicles...and I can pet the rabbits! Tell me about the rabbits, Vinod!"

Dan's schwag. That damn Long Tail gets EVERYWHERE.

John Cusak pulls the over-the-shoulder glance, made easier because Kara Swisher is half his height.

Photos: D Conference [Dan Farber on Flickr]

Steve Jobs, meet Steve Jobs

Nick Denton — Tue, 29 May 2007 13:45:27 PDT

You thought we'd given up yet on the hunt for the author of Fake Steve Jobs, the spoof diary of the narcissistic Apple founder. Okay, so, despite exhaustive textual detective work, our first guess — that the writer behind the site was Leander Kahney of Wired.com — compltely missed the target. Embarrassing. But we have a new suspect in the ongoing investigation: John Paczkowski, former editor on Good Morning Silicon Valley, tech news site of the San Jose Mercury News. Paczkowski has the writing chops; he's a longtime Apple watcher; and he told me, when we tried last autumn to hire him for Valleywag, that he was working on a book, as is the author of Fake Steve Jobs. This would be the week for Paczkowski to be exposed: All Things Digital, the Wall Street Journal spinoff for which he works, is hosting the real Steve Jobs at its annual conference in Carlsbad. One troublemaking commenter on the spoof diary site wonders, not-so-innocently: "Is John Paczkowski going to be there?" [Any theories, evidence in favor, evidence against, in the comments, please.]

Flickr founder to leave Yahoo

Owen Thomas — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 05:45:35 PDT

At least one key Yahoo executive was unswayed by Friday's revival meeting featuring Steve Jobs: Stewart Butterfield, the founder and general manager of the Yahoo-acquired Flickr photo site. Butterfield, Valleywag has learned, plans to leave to, well, spend more time with his family. It's a pat phrase that always sounds risible, but in Butterfield's case, we'll make an exception: Anyone who has seen photos of Butterfield and his infant daughter Sonnet — on Flickr, naturally — can see his complete and utterly genuine devotion. Yahoo, too, might have a claim on Butterfield's devotion, in the midst of a precarious revamp. But Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, while a big supporter of Flickr himself, is not nearly as cute. No word on whether Butterfield's wife, Caterina Fake, now a high-ranking Yahoo executive, plans any move, or who will replace Butterfield at Flickr. Update: In the comments, Butterfield says that after taking some time off in July, he's decided to take a longer paternity leave, but still plans to return to Yahoo. (Photo by mylesdgrant)

Fake Steve Jobs runs scared

Owen Thomas — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:52:12 PDT

Someone has spooked Fake Steve Jobs. Drifting in and out of character as Apple's CEO, Fake Steve has posted some rambling accusations on his blog about Valleywag publisher Nick Denton. I'm pretty sure FSJ is pulling another one of his over-the-top jokes, but for the record, Denton is far too cheap to shell out money to pay a private investigator to tail Fake Steve.

Andy Ihnatko grants a fake interview

Owen Thomas — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:39:13 PDT

Months after Valleywag named Mac columnist and book author Andy Ihnatko as a possible writer of The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, people have started fingering him as Fake Steve Jobs, the pretend Apple CEO, again, based on nothing more than some skimpy IP-address data. My pesky journalist instincts kicked in: Why not actually ask him? My lazy blogger instincts kicked in: Why not just do an IMterview? So I did. He warned me that he wouldn't give me any real answers about Fake Steve. And he delivered on that promise. But even so, I came away doubting that he's FSJ. A transcript of our AIM conversation follows.

Valleywag: Hey Andy, ready whenever you are ... Ihnatko: Okay, shoot. Valleywag: Well good evening, Fake Steve. It's quite an honor just being named, don't you think? Did you know that some people thought I was Fake Steve? Ihnatko: Yes, I can't imagine that it's an insult that people think you're FSJ. Valleywag: So, care to go on record denying it? I'll start: I am not Fake Steve Jobs. I wish I were, but I'm not. Ihnatko: Next question. Valleywag: I noticed that, seemingly alone among the Mac writer set, you've never mentioned Fake Steve Jobs on your blog. Why is that? Ihnatko: FSJ and I seem to cover different sides of the street. Plus, you'll notice that I don't often talk about tech in my blog. Valleywag: And it's also odd that he's never mentioned you. As Andy Ihnatko, famous writer on all things Mac, do you feel like that's an omission that shows Fake Steve doesn't really know his subject as well as he ought to? Ihnatko: I'm flattered that you'd think that Steve Jobs, real or otherwise, would know of me and my work. Ihnatko: I'm just trying to help the ballclub. Ihnatko: Playing them one game at a time. Ihnatko: The good Lord willing, things will work out. Valleywag: Let me give you a comparison: Googling for "Walt Mossberg" and "Mac" gives you 282,000 results. Googling for "Andy Ihnatko" and "Mac" gives you 130,000. So you may not be a Walt, but you're definitely somewhere up there in the blogosphere's esteem. Ihnatko: I thank the blogosphere kindly. There's a relevant Oscar Wilde quote about that, but I've thought it over for the past couple of minutes and I'm not sure that I'm not confusing it with something I heard Graham Chapman say while playing the part of Wilde in a Monty Python sketch. Valleywag: Which sounds suspiciously like something Fake Steve Jobs would say. Ihnatko: I thank you kindly. Valleywag: Do you ever make it out to San Francisco? Ihnatko: At least once a year ... Macworld Expo is a permanent fixture on my calendar. There's just too much fun to be had and too many cool people to meet and two many ginchy things to see. Valleywag: What's your favorite taqueria in town? Ihnatko: I'm usually too busy to have a favorite place. Usually I just eat wherever the lunch or dinner meeting is. Can't get enough of North Beach Pizza, though. Valleywag: Never make it out to the Mission, eh? Ihnatko: I think after about 16 years of visits there's hardly a spot on the peninsula which has yet to be infested with my presence. Ihnatko: Should get back to work soon ... three more questions. Valleywag: Okay. For what it's worth, you just failed my personal Fake Steve test. And a trusted source says you're definitely not the Apple CEO impersonator. What say you to these charges? Ihnatko: As always, I really have nothing to say about FSJ one way or the other. If I'm him, I have plenty of reasons to throw you off the scent. If I'm not, I have plenty of reasons to try to convince you that I'm not. Ihnatko: Either way, my motive would be to convince you I'm not FSJ, which would only lead folks to assume that my answers prove their belief (whatever it is). Ihnatko: So — again, whether I am FSJ or I'm not — the only real "win" in this situation is to neither confirm nor deny. Ihnatko: And going into this chat, I did promise not to say anything substantive on the subject. Valleywag: True enough. I can't say I wasn't warned. Valleywag: Any new book you want to plug? Say, one coming out in October? Ihnatko: But of course: in October, I'll have my Mac OS X 10.5 book on the shelves, as well as "iPhone: Fully Loaded." Which does for the iPhone what "iPod: Fully Loaded" did for the iPod. Only...for the phone. Ihnatko: Buy the iPod book right now on Amazon if you want to get the general idea of the iPhone book. Ihnatko: :) Valleywag: Hot. Andy, thanks for taking the time. And a pie at North Beach Pizza is on me next time you're in town. Ihnatko: Deal!

6 reasons why Jerry Yang's wrong about Yahoo

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:40:00 PDT

Do we still have to pity Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang? Or is it, at long last, acceptable to simply hold him in contempt? With Microsoft backing corporate raider Carl Icahn's replacement board of directors, and major investor Gordon Crawford also lining up to support Icahn, Yang's time at the company is coming to an end, and he seems to know it. Yet he's trying to stay on anyway. Like any leader facing certain failure, Yang has begun to indulge in pure make-believe. Here's a short list of Yang's Yahoo fantasies.

Microsoft never wanted to buy Yahoo in the first place and that's why the merger negotiations broke down. In a presentation to Yahoo shareholders, the current Yahoo board argued for its own survival, suggesting that "the record casts doubt on whether Microsoft was ever committed to a whole company acquisition." Except that it was Yang who took five weeks to respond to Microsoft's February 1 bid for the company, cooling Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's interest in paying Yahoo shareholders a 62 percent premium for their stakes.
Yahoo's latest reorganization puts the company in a position to independently succeed. Yang fed this line to Capital Research fund manager Gordon Crawford at a meeting last Tuesday in Los Angeles, according to BoomTown. Crawford didn't buy it — likely because he's heard that Yahoos hate the uninspiring, inept and lazy Ash Patel, the man whom Yang put in charge of a new Global Products group, despite internal rancor and protest. Crawford's now backing corporate raider Carl Icahn in his quest to unseat the Yahoo board.
Yahoo's recently departed execs were mere "MBA types."At the Tuesday meeting, Crawford — who controls 6.5 percent of the company's shares — also asked Yang about a recent rash of departures from the company's top ranks. Yang told Crawford the defectors were just "MBA types," which would be nice to believe, but isn't true. Yes, Yahoo lost a pair of suits in content chief Jeff Weiner and Brad Garlinghouse. But in the last month its also lost geeks such as Flickr founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield, Del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter, search scientist Qi Lu, and data-mining rocket scientist Usama Fayyad.
Yang believes an AOL-Yahoo merger better serves shareholders than an acquisition by Microsoft. Yahoo shareholders disagree that tying up with an aging brand would help. As one major Yahoo shareholder told us, "Two wrongs don't make a right."
Yahoo needs to keep brand and search advertising together. Crawford asked Yahoo about this one at the meeting too. Probably because, like us, he's heard from Madison Avenue ad buyers who say that clients don't usually buy their brand and search advertising from the same place. Yang believes otherwise — because its a reason to keep Yahoo independent. Back in our logic class, they called that one a tautology.
Carl Icahn's board of directors will not be able to negotiate as well with once-more merger-ready Microsoft as the current board. Says our shareholder source: "The big fight you'll get from the Yahoo board now will be: We can get a better price from Microsoft than Carl. He's too cozy with them." Except Yahoo's board and Yang didn't prove themselves worthy negotiators the first time around, did they? Here's why: Instead of reacting to facts, Yang and company preferred to adhere to beliefs. If Yahoo were a religion rather than a business, they'd be set.

(Photo by Yodel Anecdotal)

The five sites you must stop reading (and five to replace them)

Nick Douglas — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:00:03 PDT

Is the Onion still funny, or have you just gotten used to reading it so you haven't seen it decline from its '90s heyday to the pool of mediocrity it is today? How about Boing Boing, McSweeney's, CNN.com, or Perez Hilton? It's time to feel bad about what you like, for that is the path to enlightenment, or at least to not being that dink who IMs me month-old jokes about Bush.

The Onion
When it was worth reading: In the 90s, when it was fresh and fake news hadn't yet been properly done. Articles started with an ironic lede and developed into a larger farce, like the 1997 story "Supreme Court Overturns Car," which depicted the Court as a wild frat. Just three years ago, the Onion still successfully mined the mundanities of modern life: Wikipedia sticklers, cops suspecting terrorists and teens, fat women¹, and Christian rock bands.
Why you must stop: The Onion is like Dane Cook: where are the jokes?² The schtick — ironic headline, similarly ironic lede, endless reiteration of lede — is tiresome. "Not So Horrible Thing Happens In Iraq" might have been funny four years ago. This parody of unfunny humor columnists feels witty until you realize you could write its series of non-jokes yourself.
Maybe the Onion didn't even change — it just looks worse against all the new competition. Politics is better satirized by the Daily Show franchise, celebrities better mocked by bloggers, mundanity better picked apart by more bloggers.³ All that's left for the Onion is the same observational humor that normal people make. Instead of telling a friend, "Hey, isn't that Wes Anderson movie just like all his others? Heh, and he always puts the Kinks in the soundtrack," you can send a friend the Onion article that says just that. Ha! Ha! This article is funny because it's true!⁴
What it's still good for: Mocking other lame publications, as in "Pitchfork Media gives music 6.8." And the AV Club is still neat.
Replace with: NPR puts its weekly news quiz, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me! online. It's not as hip, but that's why it has room to be funny. By the way, they had Colbert on this week.

McSweeney's Internet Tendency
When it was worth reading: About four years ago.
Why you must stop: Just like the Onion, McSweeney's has fallen into an endless schtick. Everything is either "A thing as if it were done by my family/co-workers/friends" or "I am an expert at normal life" or "Overextended metaphor"⁵ or "Basically an Onion column "Mundane thing done wacky!"
What it's still good for: Outsourcing your own jokes. The last funny article on this site was "Thomas Kincade's Experimental Period."
Replace with: Old Garrison Keillor collections. Try "Happy to Be Here" or "We Are Still Married." For fresh funny, read the humor section of The Morning News, or get over your wry self and read some balls-out humor at Corporate Casual.⁶

CNN.com
When it was worth reading: When the only other option was TV
Why you must stop: It's not news, it's fark: sensationalist stories that don't constitute world-changing news. The site's headlines, often with invitations to "watch this," have long been fodder for Gawker. The front page looks like an "oddly enough" section. So either take that to its logical conclusion and read full-on trash, or switch to a real news site.
What it's still good for: I dunno, knowing what other CNN readers are talking about?
Replace with: MSNBC for better (not perfect) mainstream headlines; Drudge for a quick screamy snapshot of the day's stories, and Fark for stupid news.

Perez Hilton
~~When it was worth reading~~
Why you must stop: It's vile, unimaginative pulp by a man who is friends with Paris Hilton. Perez's taste in celebrities is only outshittied by his writing style. Maybe everything that sucks has some connection to Dane Cook, because Perez's weak neologisms⁷ could have been coined by the inventor of the "SuFi."⁸
~~What it's still good for~~
Replace with: The Superficial has decent writing, Pink is the New Blog has better photo vandalism.

Boing Boing
When it was worth reading: When one blog could catalogue all the wacky things on the Internet.
Why you must stop: The net's too big now, and Boing Boing misses plenty. That's fine, it's not their job to make sure no one sees something funny and weird before you do. But the best stuff shows up in a million other blogs anyway, so Boing Boing is no longer a must-read.
What it's still good for: Boing Boing TV (a new series) has original . Xeni Jardin⁹ interviews people like the director of the Simpsons movie and Bill Gates's Microsoft co-founder.
Replace with: Tumblr blogs, which have all the junk-drawer appeal with none of the context or commentary. Try Tumbl.us, Scribbling.net, and A Garden of Varied Delights. If you want something higher-class, savor the baroque feel of Kottke and Fimoculous.

¹Whatever the Dove campaign says, fat women will always be fun to laugh at.
²Or like Steve Wright's unfunny cousin. Or like New Yorker cartoons in which, says Gawker, "the rate of humor is the exact same as naturally occurring humor in the world."
³And "The Office."
⁴Before I realized how desperately unfunny it would be, I originally wanted to write a parody article called "Onion makes observation about modern middle-class life, stretches premise out to 1000 mildly amusing words."
⁵See also: 1, 2, 3. I thought about just listing McSweeney's headlines and hoping you'd get the picture, because that seems to be the style McSweeney's readers respond to.
⁶Disclosure: The writer of "Corporate Casual" sometimes writes for the same publisher as mine. This isn't even really a disclosure, I just want him to notice me and maybe Facebook message me, like, "thanks doug for the plug."
⁷"Fauxmance." Okay, not even his word.
⁸It's the finger, but with the ring finger extended too. It's a "super finger." He named a company after it.
⁹Fun Fact: If Hillary Clinton is Data from Star Trek¹⁰, Xeni Jardin is that sexy Cylon from Battlestar Galactica.
¹⁰Or Johnny Five from "Short Circuit"

Nick Douglas writes at Valleywag and Too Much Nick. Those things you like? He is over them. But he listens to Billy Joel, so you're still ahead.

At CES, benighted bloggers versus pampered press

Jordan Golson — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 12:27:07 PST

This was the first year at CES that bloggers were widely credentialed — and given their own, special, "blogger lounge". Sadly though, the bloggers seem unimpressed. The lounge, which was pitifully small compared to the more prestigious "press lounge," was pretty barren. Among the accoutrements in the press lounge? Espresso, fresh baked cookies and lots of fellow reporters to network with. We hung out with Dan Lyons, the Fake Steve Jobs blogueur, and even Jason Calacanis "graced us" with his presence. The blogger lounge? It's pitifully small, but the worst part is it's location. The press lounge is right next to the South Hall entrance, near the CNet Live Stage. The blogger lounge is located at the far end of the South Convention floor. It takes literally 20 minutes to walk from one room to the other. I'll pass. More after the jump.

Then there's this thing called the "bloghaus", which is over at the Bellagio. Valleywag spy Peter Shankman tells us that it's nothing special. "There's no difference. It's crowded, and people don't know how to shut the fuck up. Some jagoff is making a huge production out of posting his 'I got tasered' video. I'm like, 'Um, I did that a year ago. But thanks for playing.'" Ah, but there is one redeeming feature to bloghaus. Hotblogger Sarah Meyers is there. Shankman tells us "she's blogging next to me and looking all hot. I'm blogging next to her eating a mayo sandwich. Therein lies the fundamental difference."

Apple CEO Steve Jobs IMs the Times

Owen Thomas — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 17:30:07 PDT

The most fascinating bit in Brad Stone's exposé of Fake Steve Jobs? For commenter davidu, it was the revelation that real Apple CEO Steve Jobs was interviewed by instant messenger. Impressive: Someone at the Times — most likely John Markoff — has Jobs's iChat screenname. And editors at Gray Lady consented to the inclusion of notes from an IMterview. We sent our crack reporters on a digging mission and they discovered this exclusive transcript. Must credit Valleywag!

The faux Apple CEO gets a real job at Forbes

Owen Thomas — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 23:24:11 PDT

Alas, poor Blogger. Fake Steve Jobs, one of the highest-profile users of the Google-owned blog service is departing for ... Forbes.com? Yes. The online arm of the stuffy business magazine isn't known for hosting blogs, but it's making room for Dan Lyons, the Forbes editor recently outed as Fake Steve jobs, the faux Apple CEO. The only question: Will Lyons get a raise for his troubles? I sure hope so. When last Fake Steve and I made plans to dine out, he proposed a burrito at Pancho Villa, the beloved and cheap taqueria in San Francisco's Mission District.