Our favorite fake answer is tech investor Peter Thiel's theory that the interent is a harmless network of FAX machines. Always running PR for our future robot overlords, that one.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin is a weird guy. A smart programmer whose ideas lifted humanity, but a weird guy nonetheless. A coder who dislikes coffee. An American who knows virtually nothing about baseball. And then there are his evening jollies.

John Batelle couldn't promote his Web summit, for want of a working website; a Wall Street Journal reporter ogled her own book and Bonnie Fuller undermined Angelina Jolie's body image. The Twitterati took self promotion to new places.