Nicholas M. Ciarelli (born September 5, 1986) is an American journalist 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 on "Nom de Plume", a term of Victorian English coinage, mimicking

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

, 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, a blogger posted an article revealing dePlume as an undergraduate at Harvard University, where he was a reporter for '' The Harvard Crimson''. Two days later, ''The Harvard Crimson'' covered the story of Nick Ciarelli, one of the paper's own news editors. '' The Wall Street Journal'' 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 Washington Post'', '' The Boston Globe'', and the Associated Press, among other news outlets. Ciarelli grew up and attended public school in Cazenovia, NY, where he excelled in academics, achieving salutatorian 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 current affairs magazine site launched by former '' Vanity Fair'' editor Tina Brown. In 2012, Ciarelli and Josh Schanker co-founded

BookBub BookBub is a book discovery service that was created to help readers find new books and authors. The company features free and discounted ebooks selected by its editorial team, as well as book recommendations, updates from authors, and articles a ...

, 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)