Looks like big media companies are taking a page right out of “acquire a startup a week” Google, and may be trying to bolster their online properties (perhaps, amongst other things, to capture online ad sales) with web2.0 functionality. Case in point: Hearst which has recently acquired Kaboodle, a social networking site for shopping, so that it might better integrate itself into its online magazine properties.

These kinds of magazines online magazines (such as Cosmopolitan)”feature” a variety of commercial products and services, and so it seems like an good fit with them. While Hearst might be acquiring Kaboodle to directly affect the bottom line (in an indirect fashion — increase brand, increase “stickiness” and sharing of items across friends via Kaboodle, increase the opportunity for cross/up-selling via affiliate relationships and so on), Forbes is taking a different route, it seems.

VentureBeat reports (and Forbes confirms in the comments) that Clipmarks, the social bookmarking tool, was bought not necessarily for the benefit of its readers — but so that it could be a tool that helps its journalists share information about stories faster, file stories quicker, and have the information in the hands of its readers that much sooner. I think the proof will be in the pudding as to how these acquisitions go for big media.

Personally, I think this a really fascinating story that actually integrates many different memes that I like to blog about, including the evolution of old and new media, coupled with the rise of “Web2.0″, startups and the goings on in the Valley. If big media can find ways to make these acquisitions pay off, could these web startups actually be the answer to declining newspaper profits, by acting as catalysts for further online growth (to balance the fall in offline revenues)?

Maybe.

Because if it does it might in fact be the win-win-win that everyone’s looking for.  Big media win because they stave off extinction and finally evolve into an entity that is relevant and profitable online as off.  Startups win because they get to cash out with acquisition being the exit strategy (and more players willing to pay for them).  And VC companies win when Startups win.  With all due respect to 37signals, I do wonder if the startup boom of 2006 - ? will be marked with more “companies” than ever being built not, for example, to turn a profit, but with the aim to be acquired.  Of course, the ending will only be happy if big media can actually integrate these properties to make them work for them in some kind of strategy that makes sense.  Heck, if Yahoo has a hard time doing it, what does that portend for big media companies?  Luckily this chapter is only getting started, and I, for one, am eager to see how it plays out.

So, you may or may not have heard that Fake Steve Jobs was outed today in the New York Times as a senior editor of Forbes, thanks to some intrepid reporting by one Brad Stone.  Three words came to mind when I read this story.

1. “Machiavellian”.
Remember when FSJ posted this indignant response about a month ago? Don’t read it if you don’t want. I barely did the first time. The gist of it was that he was quietly enraged because Valleywag went too far in trying to find out his identity. I followed that up with my own opinion about how ludicrous it was to want to be an anonymous blogger.

Well, it looks like he played us *all* for idiots. Pansies. Suckers. Dupes. Turkeys.

Chumps.

Clearly there was nothing actually done on Valleywag’s part, and the post was merely done at FSJ’s amusement. And to that, I give a tip of the hat to your sheer mendaciously and Machiavellian attempts to deliberately waylay the blogtards (he has a ‘clever’ penchant for adding the post-fix ‘tard’ to things/entities/people that he doesn’t have an inclination towards) that have been following your ‘identity’ so closely for the past few months.

2. “Schadenfreude”.
Ah, good ol’ Schadenfreude. Thank God for German, which is the only language that has effectively captured, in a single word, the joy of seeing others suffer. I feel only partly guilty in relishing in some delicious schadenfreude when I think that it was the Gray Old Lady that broke this very specific, very indulgent piece of blogospheric news.

Who else is going to care about this tomorrow, besides tech geeks and ‘blogtards’? No one. And yet, who has beat Valleywag on Valleywag’s on beat? No, its not another blogger, nor even, perhaps, one of the most connected bloggers in the Valley, Mike Arrington. In fact, it seems like “connections” (which super a-list bloggers happily revel in) had nothing to do with sorting out FSJ’s identity.

Good ol’ investigative reporting did. The En-Why-Tee. And they deserve a pat on the back. Albeit that its for covering and breaking a piece of news so narrow that I am *sure* the majority of NYT’s tech readers will be wondering “Who the frack is FSJ and why should I care?” (which will, I’m sure be followed by “Wow, this isn’t funny — what’s the fuss?”)

3. “Meh”.
That’s right. Good ol’ Meh. I am of course referring to the word, perhaps best popularized by the Simpsons, which according to the compendium of the world’s knowledge, is a “word has come to be used as an interjection indicating apathy or lack of enthusiasm, or as an adjective meaning mediocre or uninspiring.”

And if you followed my original post (and even this one — hey, thanks for getting this far) about FSJ, you’ll know that I don’t really think much of FSJ, nor how “funny” and “witty” he is. I recognize that humour, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, but really.

This unbelievably indulgent techno-blogospheric navel gazing is a bit much. YES, I realize we do it far too much to begin with on any number of stories, and NO, I don’t really have an axe to grind.

What’s “funny” about the situation is that when I read about FSJ’s ‘real’ identity, a post by Dwight Silverman (who writes at the Houston Chronicle, who, incidentally was kind enough to refer to my blog as “excellent” ) twigged my memory. Dwight, who is also a fan of FSJ, thought that *knowing* who FSJ’s identity was was going to ruin the fun he was having.

I wasn’t sure, but I think he’s right.

As much “Meh” as I think FSJ is *now*, I can only imagine the depths of my apathy will sink to once I know that FSJ is actually written not — say, by some witty consultant in the wilds of Boston, or someone *in* Apple, or say, even Steve Jobs himself (that would be ‘real’ news) — but a *senior* editor for Forbes?

Meh, indeed.

Well, good luck, Daniel Lyons, or Fake Steve, or whatever moniker you’re going by these days. I think your blog will probably need it, although I’m sure that book you’ve written about the experience probably won’t.