Apple

The site’s demise prompted outrage from some Apple followers, but in this case David — aka Nicholas Ciarelli — got his own happy ending: freedom from having to run the site anymore. Ciarelli, 22, graduates this spring and said he was more than ready to abandon the site he had run since he was a 13-year-old Mac fanatic. He also received a payment from Apple, according to a person familiar with the case. Both sides declined to discuss details of the agreement.

“For some time, I’ve been ready to move on,” said Ciarelli, a social studies major. “My hope would be that my professional career is not defined by a project I launched while in junior high. Now I have that opportunity.” For its part, Apple probably was relieved to say goodbye to a pesky rumor site that broke stories on its upcoming products before Chief Executive Steve Jobs could announce them in his choreographed keynote speeches at Macworld conferences.

Despite the buzz that those leaks build for Apple products, the company is famous for meticulously controlling its product launches. The Cupertino, Calif., company also saved itself the embarrassment of having its case, in which it accused Ciarelli of misappropriating trade secrets, tossed out. The fight highlights a collision between Apple’s culture of creating innovative products under great secrecy and the blogosphere’s ability to reveal those secrets.

With its “Got Dirt?” online solicitation, giving tipsters multiple ways to share information anonymously, Think Secret is among a host of websites that are hybrids between journalism, rumor mills and celebrations of Apple’s products. Industry analysts and journalists at mainstream news organizations frequently rely on these sites, including MacRu mors.com and AppleInsider .com, for tips leading up to Apple events.