One of the biggest blog stories in the last year has been the emergence of a Fake Steve Jobs, who takes on the personality of the true Apple CEO, and amusingly, sarcastically and vindictively touts all things Apple and rips all others, from Microsoft to Sun to Google. While many an attempt has been made to expose the author's true identity, no confirmations have been made.As the Fake Steve rounds up incredible attention, linkage and talk, other fake blogs have sprung up, for Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, and even PodTech's Robert Scoble. But none have gained much traction. If Fake Steve were to possess an incredible ego, it could be said he seems to have cornered the market on pseudo-CEO blogging. That's the only logical reason I can think of why Fake Steve would be "jumping the shark" and faking the addition of a co-blogger, his friend, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. In Fake Steve's absence, Fake Larry has been posting for the last few days.
To me, this is a sure sign that Fake Steve is down from his peak. Just like real, consistent, well-written blogging can be tiresome and occasionally unrewarding, I would assume that consistent, well-written fake blogging can be similarly tiring. To add Fake Larry as a co-author tells me that Fake Steve has hit something resembling writer's block, or that a gap in Apple news (is there ever a gap?) has him grasping for straws.
Fake Steve is not such a great writer that we are yearning for a network of fake tech pundits under the author's umbrella. Fake Steve is great because the mercurial Steve Jobs is such a unique target. There's something to be said for focus.