Marketing Nirvana

Summary: Dan Lyons (editor of the Fake Steve Jobs’ blog) seems to have pulled a quick hoax on the gullible reader base of his blog — I was sold when he started writing in his own voice on his Fake Steve Jobs blog alleging that the legal eagles at Apple were trying to shut down his blog for half a million dollars! — Reminiscent of another hoax when Clifford Irving duped a nation into believing he was writing the “authorized autobiography” of Howard Hughes.

Things to note:

1. FSJ’s Facebook status indicates he’s “totally faking it. For real”. So, I’m going to officially call this a hoax, unless Dan says otherwise.

2. If this is indeed a hoax, more and more obvious now, it’s definitely a brilliant one. The similarities with the Clifford Irving hoax are numerous and uncanny.

* Clifford Irving is best known for an “authorized autobiography” of Howard Hughes that turned out to be a hoax. Dan Lyons is best known for an “unauthorized diary/blog” of Steve Jobs where he pulls a hoax that Apple was trying to shut down his blog.

* Howard Hughes and Steve Jobs are legendary figures in their own right — part of the legend built by exaggerated word-of-mouth and the cult built around it.

Here Richard Gere (who plays Clifford Irving in the movie – pic above) describes why Howard Hughes was so fascinating.

He was such an archetypal character. He was part sadhu, Indian fakir – saint! He was this uber-capitalist, political guy, movie guy. It was all these power structures. And no one, had put them together in one mix before.

Sounds familiar? That’s what Clifford Irving did with the Hughes’ character and what Dan Lyons has masterfully maneuvered with his blog and the new book “Option$” (IMO, a must-read).

* Just check out their Wikipedia entries and you’ll know what I mean:

Howard Hughes

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (24 December 1905 – 5 April 1976), was an eccentric (emphasis mine) American aviator, engineer, industrialist, film producer and director, and one of the wealthiest people in the world.

Steve Jobs

Jobs’s history in business has contributed greatly to the myths of the quirky, individualistic (emphasis mine) Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design while understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal.

There is an entire sub-section devoted to Jobs’ Managerial Style in Wikipedia

3. The reason both these hoaxes worked is because we have already bought into the myth of these characters (quirky, eccentric and individualistic). Interestingly, we bought into the myth of Steve Jobs that Dan has been cultivating on his blog as well as in his new book “Options”, and the hoax just played upon those notions.

Example: FSJ’s Management Style post, FSJ unleases Moshe (head of Security and ex Mossad lol) on anyone he’s displeased with. So when Dan Lyons received threatening emails from Apple, it all seemed to make sense.

4. Couple of other reasons, Dan’s bluff worked:

* Recent, shutting down of the “Think Secret” blog

* Dan’s going away on vacation coupled with the sudden escalation in legal discussions set the stage for a Silicon Valley Punk’d episode

Irrespective of the outcome of this drama, I think this episode sheds a lot of light into the pyschology of the blogosphere, the state of media (old and new) and how willingly we buy into the mythology of public personalities that we create ourselves.

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I’ve had an opportunity to collaborate with Dan recently, when we put together a LinkedIn Q&A session with Guy Kawasaki. The guy is insanely funny and has a great sense of humor. Check out some of the video clips below. Nicely done, Dan. Merry Christmas!