Nicholas M. Ciarelli (born September 5, 1986) is an American

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and was Editor-In-Chief of

Think Secret Think Secret, founded in 1998, was a web site which specialized in publishing reports and rumors about Apple Inc. The name of the site was a play on Apple's one-time advertising slogan, "Think Different". Think Secret's archives reached as far back ...

, a website he started in 1999 at the age of thirteen and ceased publishing on December 20, 2007 after reaching a settlement with Apple. Prior to January 2005, although his identity was widely known within the Mac journalism world, Ciarelli was known publicly only by the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

"Nick dePlume" (a

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...

on "Nom de Plume", a term of Victorian English coinage, mimicking French, meaning "

") that he used on his website.Teen Web Editor Drives Apple to Court Action!
washingtonpost.com. January 13, 2005 When news spread that

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

had filed a lawsuit against Think Secret, followers of the Mac rumors community began to wonder who 'dePlume' actually was. On January 10, 2005, the night before the

Macworld Conference & Expo Macworld/iWorld was an information technology trade show with conference tracks dedicated to the Apple Macintosh platform. It was held annually in the United States during January. Originally ''Macworld Expo'' and then ''Macworld Conference & Expos ...

, a blogger posted an article revealing dePlume as an undergraduate at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, where he was a reporter for ''

The Harvard Crimson ''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper of Harvard University and was founded in 1873. Run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates, it served for many years as the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Beginning in the f ...

''. Two days later, ''The Harvard Crimson'' covered the story of Nick Ciarelli, one of the paper's own news editors. ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' has called Think Secret "one of the most influential Web sites" about Apple. Ciarelli's ongoing legal battle with Apple has been covered by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', and the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

, among other news outlets. Ciarelli grew up and attended public school in Cazenovia, NY, where he excelled in academics, achieving

salutatorian Salutatorian is an academic title given in the United States, Armenia, and the Philippines to the second-highest-ranked graduate of the entire graduating class of a specific discipline. Only the valedictorian is ranked higher. This honor is tradi ...

upon graduation. Ciarelli was an active participant in the stage crew for the high school musical, and could often be found in the A/V room broadcasting on the school's

closed-circuit television Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly t ...

network. Although he had a successful reporting and consulting business by the tenth grade, very few people at school knew anything about his online alter ego. Those who did were mostly teachers. Ronald Lutheran, Ciarelli's high school math teacher and a longtime family friend, called his former student an "extraordinary kid with a very good sense of humor." He said the boy was an avid reader by age 5, an accomplished pianist and a keen Mac fan. Ciarelli was a contributor to ''

The Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...

'', the current affairs magazine site launched by former '' Vanity Fair'' editor

Tina Brown Christina Hambley Brown, Lady Evans (born 21 November 1953), is an English journalist, magazine editor, columnist, talk-show host, and author of '' The Diana Chronicles'' (2007) a biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, '' The Vanity Fair Diari ...

. In 2012, Ciarelli and Josh Schanker co-founded BookBub, an ebook discovery service for readers. BookBub is headquartered in Cambridge, MassachusettsBookBub Closing In on Two Million Members
Publishers Weekly, November 2013

References

External links

BookBub: Free Ebooks - Great deals on bestsellers you'll loveThe dePlume Organization, LLC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ciarelli, Nicholas American male journalists Living people The Harvard Crimson people 1986 births People from Cazenovia, New York Journalists from New York (state)