Posted on March 9, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

My photo of Steve Jobs at the Oscars 28,000 views later, a media/blog frenzy & my side of the story.

As many of you know Sunday I had the opportunity to be a guest blogger on the Red Carpet Bleachers at the Oscars thanks to Kodak’s marketing team Tom and Jennifer @KodakCB. Before attending the event I knew I would probably see celebrities such as Tyler Perry or Steve Carell.

But little did I know I would see Mr. Steve Jobs himself walking the red carpet. Yes, the CEO of Apple walked right in front of me with a guest trying to go unnoticed on the red carpet and he almost pulled it off too. I was using one of the Kodak’s cameras to zoom in and I saw what looked liked the back of his head. Then it hit me, OMG that’s Steve Jobs! Immediately I started screaming trying to get his attention and he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye with an aww you spotted me look. Also there was security guard behind him who had a similar smirk on his face who looked at me with a yes, that’s Steve Jobs look on his face.

So before I knew it, while everyone else was yelling at Quentin Tarantino and Lenny Kravitz who was right behind Mr. Jobs I was screaming, “it’s Steve Jobs!” When I say, I was screaming, Steve Jobs I mean literally screaming. Two other red carpet friends who I just met earlier on Sunday both gave me a look and one of them said. “Why are you screaming about Steve Jobs when Quentin Tarantino is standing right there? ”

My first answer was, you know he’s the CEO of Apple right. They’re response was, yes and somewhere between seeing and screaming “It’s Steve Jobs” I snapped a far off photo of him on the red carpet with my iPhone. Then realizing that the picture may be too far off I tried to take a close up picture of Mr. Jobs with one of the Kodak cameras but it was too late. Steve Jobs vanished on the red carpet sneaking past main stream media and all of the entertainment reporters unnoticed. So I emailed the picture to my posterous site which crossed posted here on SocialWayne.com but tweeted the Posterous link.

Daniel & Carrie from the bleachers.

From there after calming down and thinking, wow I just saw Steve Jobs in real life, I was still trying to convince my red carpet bleachers friends how big of a deal it was that we just saw Steve Jobs. They brushed it off and everyone continued to take photos of other celebrities walking the red carpet. After a few minutes I checked my Twitter stream and saw that @TUAW had retweeted me, then the story was on CNet.com in which they called Apple’s PR to confirm that Steve Jobs attended the Oscars. Next I received an email from Peter Kafka senior editor of AllthingsD.com asking if he could use my photo and if I had any more information to add to the story he was working on. Soon after that, I received a few tweets that the photo was on Mashable and Apple had released a new iPad commercial during the Oscars. The rest is what you can say is history from retweets, to more blog post to even being listed on Techmeme as a source. I’ve been trying to get on Techmeme for years!

I’m not going to go into why  Steve Jobs was at the Oscars or about the iPad but even if it was for a brief second, I can say I saw Steve Jobs in real life at the Oscars and I owe it all to Kodak. Thanks Tom and Jennifer @KodakCB.

As for the media/blog frenzy here are a few of the blog post about Steve Jobs walking on the red carpet for the Oscars 2010.

1. Cnet: Steve Jobs spotted at the Oscars; iPad ad runs
2. CnnMoney.com: Steve Jobs’ big night at the Oscars
3. All Things Digital: “OMG It’s Steve Jobs! I’m the Only One Yelling at Him!”
4. Huffingtonpost.com: Steve Jobs’ Oscar Cameo: PICTURES Of Tux-Wearing Apple CEO On The Red Carpet
5. Venture Beat: Steve Jobs attends Academy Awards, Apple runs iPad commercial during the Oscars
6. Good Morning Silicon Valley: Jobs and iPad make Oscar cameos
7. theappleblog.com: Apple at the Oscars
8. Mashable: First iPad Commercial Airs During the Oscars [VIDEO]
9. Steve Jobs spotted at the Oscars; iPad ad runs
10. Thanks to Pixar, Steve Jobs Makes an Appearance at 2010 Oscars
11. The Oscars Featuring Steve Jobs and iPad Commercials
12. Market Recap: Nasdaq Composite Rises to a New 52-Week High
13. Steve Jobs Takes iPad Promotion to the Oscars
14. Apple’s iPad invasion: First stop, Hollywood
15. Steve Jobs hits the Oscars

As for the photo that started it all, here it is with one more blurry head shot of Mr. Steve Jobs.

If you had a chance to interview Steve Jobs what would you ask him?

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