Identity hijacking on Twitter.

The other day, I got an email from Twitter announcing that someone new is following me.

SIOOMA! (Siooma) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out SIOOMA!'s profile here:

 http://twitter.com/Siooma

You may follow SIOOMA! as well by clicking on the "follow" button.

Best,
Twitter

If you are on Twitter, then you have seen that type of message before.  It means that a user with the handle "Siooma" is now following my site.  I took a peek at Siooma's Twitter page and sure enough it lists a Fake Steve Jobs blog post as the home page.  Siooma is one of the FSJ's favorite sayings, read that blog post for the full definition - I don't want to spoil the fun by taking it out of context.  I read some of Siooma's previous "tweet" and I don't think it's the real deal.  They were sort of FSJ-like, but they were missing the sharp edge that a real FSJ post would have.  Part of what makes FSJ so fun to read is how close to the truth he appears to get at.

If you do a search on Twitter for FSJ, you get a couple of hits.  None of them are the authentic FSJ.  His Twitter handle is FakeSteveTwit, which oddly enough doesn't come up in that Twitter search.  Doing a parody of a famous person can be entertaining, the "real" Fake Steve Jobs is both entertaining and informative.  He does more than a Mad Magazine style of parody, FSJ covers actual Apple events and applies the FSJ twist to the analysis.  The man behind the satire, Daniel Lyons, is a real journalist and does a good job covering the stock options backdating scandal that involved the real Steve Jobs a while back.  When you read FSJ, you wonder how to close he gets to the actual Steve Jobs and does the real Steve Jobs ever wish he could say some of things that the FSJ says.  None of the FSJ clones on Twitter have that magic.  Even if they could, it would hard to produce that in 140 character limit of a Twitter post.

Siooma is welcome to follow my Twitter feed, but I'm not planning on reciprocating.  FSJ has but some serious time and effort in his blog.  The FSJ wannabees are just riding on his coattails.  When they list his blog as their web site, it comes off that they are pretending to be the FSJ.  Lyons does not have a monopoly on being a fake Steve Jobs, but it's not right to claim his site as your own.  If Siooma and the other clones want to be another FSJ, then they should get their own FSJ blogs and develop their own personas.