Earlier today Dan 'Fake Steve Jobs' Lyons took to the stage at the SugarCon user conference in San Francisco. While you can read the article on the keynote at V3.co.uk, there was plenty of other great stuff that for one reason or another didn't make it into the final article but is still very much worth sharing. So here are a few snippets from the presentation:

On the hype surrounding the 2007 iPhone release and recent iPad releases:

If you buy a product and the sales staff all line up and cheer, you probably didn't get a good deal. That's my biggest fear when I buy a new car; that the salesmen all cheer.

On the huge public reaction to Fake Steve's 'Operation Chokehold' campaign to clog AT&T's 3G network and encourage the company to improve its infrastructure:

I thought oh my god, I'm losing my job and going to jail. I'm just sitting at home in my pajamas doing this shit. It was just mental.

On the recent revelation of iPhone OS 4.0 with its stricter controls, along with Apple's iAds mobile advertising service and what it will mean to users:

This is Steve's dream, he's got 360 degree control. Now it's not just a walled garden, it's a walled garden splattered with shitty ads.

On why he loves playing the Fake Steve persona:

It's because often I get to tell the truth. In the media, we're well paid professional liars. Then Newsweek ended up hiring me, which I still can't believe.

A few other tidbits:

While Lyons was working at Forbes and writing the Fake Steve blog incognito, the publisher of Forbes was one of the most enthusiastic hunters of the blog's author, at one point even offering a reward for the identity of Fake Steve. Lyons eventually struck an advertising deal with the company before he was revealed by The New York Times.

As one might expect, Lyons is not in the good graces of Steve Jobs or Apple. At one point, he even stopped his presentation and offered a few choice words for any Apple employees in attendance.

A new TV show based on the blog is in the works. Lyons will be working with Borat director Larry Charles to create the series about the exploits of a fictional Silicon Valley executive based not only on Steve Jobs, but on other tech icons such as Larry Ellison.

Lyons has long described Apple's corporate culture as "the church of Scientology gets into the consumer electronics business". But that analogy has recently been updated: Lyons now describes the company as "Tony Soprano running Disneyland".

14 Apr 2010