Anonymous fun in corporate world

The advent of Web 2.0 with platforms such as online discussion forums, blogs, networking sites has started to make even corporate world quite interesting.

I think the first among this(or so I know) is the blog by Fake Steve Jobs (FSJ). This hugely popular blog is being penned by someone who writes as if he is real Steve Jobs. No one knows who Fake Steve Jobs is? Few have guessed him as Leander Kahney (MD of Wired.com) and few thought he might be Steve Jobs himself. Whoever it is, but the blog is a place to read interesting spoofs about Apple, jab on its rivals and news about technology world. Fake Steve Jobs has even been ranked as 41st most influential person in Business by Business 2.0 magazine. The blog is a must read for anyone who wants to be see the interesting side of technology world.

The most recent example is that of the CEO of Whole Food Market, John Mackey. For seven years he has been posting on Yahoo Finance’s bulletin board. Most of 11,000 entries by him were in support of his company and occasionally critical of his competitor ‘Wild Oats Markets’. This fact was disclosed only when Whole Food Market filed court document in the process of buying Wild Oats Markets. Without it, this disclosure might never be known.

Though this incident of John Mackey might have some ethical or may be legal implications, the Fake Steve Jobs seems to be innocent fun. Or not, if he is real Steve Jobs. One might keep arguing about the ramifications of these pseudo posters or bloggers, but the fact that these incidents highlight is “there is always more than what meets the eye in online world”