Nicholas Ciarelli

Who is Nicholas Ciarelli?

Nicholas M. Ciarelli is an American journalist and was Editor-In-Chief of Think Secret, 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 "Nick dePlume" that he uses on his website. When news spread that Apple Computer 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 Macworld, 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.