For a full list of today's Salon Technology stories, go to the Technology home page. O n Wednesday night, Mahir came to San Francisco. I think it's fair to say that his appearance caused more of a minor sensation than Santa himself might have, had he materialized in the sky behind eight flying reindeer.
Fame is truly an odd beast.
Millions thronged to his Web page, started fan clubs and sent him love letters. We later discovered that the humorous text on his page was the result of an anonymous hacker, but Mahir Cagri was already famous, featured in the pages of People, Time and USA Today. The Net industry being what it currently is, it didn't take long for an enterprising start-up to invite Mahir on a promotional tour of the United States. This is the first stop and San Francisco has come out to celebrate. No marketing budget has been as effective as Mahir's amateur Web page.