And it all started out by someone casually saying to him "hey, you kind-of-sort-of look like that guy that heads up the company that makes iPods...what's his name again."

A legend is born.

And the world shakes and reels with a titanic "meh". And the sound of billions of people not caring in the slightest drowns out the roar of the seas.

No one mentions the most interesting part about how Steve Jobs answered the interview request via IM?

How often do people IM w/ Steve? Not too often I'd imagine. Maybe that's why Mr. Markoff was listed as being a contributor; he and steve probably go way back... :-)

I found this bit especially interesting:

"As for Mr. Jobs himself - the real one - he did not seem all that interested when told the identity of his online doppelganger. He said in an instant message conversation that he had no interest in reading Mr. Lyons's novel."

and:

"John Markoff contributed reporting."

So, John Markoff definitely has Real Steve's IM. Anyone wanna guess what SJ's IM is? =)

I think you should take this down, Gizmodo. As we as geek society decided together about a month ago, it doesn't matter who fake Steve Jobs is, as long as he writes insightful things. Why do we put that in jeopardy by telling everybody who he is?

@FIGARO

"InstevelyGreat55"

LonelyGirl15?

"The jig is up, the news is out, they finally found me, the renegade who had it made, retrieved for a bounty..."

Haha, off the FSJ blog:

"Hope you feel good about yourself, you mangina. One bright side is that at least I was busted by the Times and not Valleywag."

Guess he doesn't like you guys.

@Havok154:

I was going to pull that quote as VW seemed to have overlooked, err excluded it.

Well i don't know, im double sad that he has been exposed and that VW wasnt the one to break story.

Hats off to Mr Stone and the Times for putting the pieces together and they deserve a pat on the back, but...

Part of me wonders that because they've outed FSJ and a while back, they outed Brian Stelter, the college freshman who started TVNewser, perhaps they should consider pointing more of their crackerjack investigative skills toward targets that are just a tad more important.

"I've known for some time now that several Forbes employees were in on the secret."

Sure you did. We knew that from all the times you mentioned it here. Oh wait a minute...