"Merman's" profile pic

Life as a single billionaire can be tricky. Let's say you want to set up a MySpace page to interact with your Hollywood pals. How do you inject it with your personality without revealing your true identity to anyone else who might stumble across it?

Paul Allen appears to have given it a try, although we're about to spoil the secret. We've come across a MySpace profile page, under the screen name "Merman," that contains tell-tale signs of being the Microsoft co-founder's covert online home.

To be clear, this is not one of those fake celebrity pages that people set up on social-networking sites. Instead, it seems to be an attempt by Allen himself to masquerade as a common MySpace user.

[UPDATE: The profile has been switched to private since we first posted this item. Continue reading for details of what we saw.]

First, there's the profile pic, showing a man playing a classic Fender guitar across his midsection. The face is cropped out, but it looks a lot like Allen enjoying one of his favorite pastimes. Even the ring on the right hand looks like one Allen has been known to wear. And the "interests" section lists many of Allen's favorite musicians, starting with Jimi Hendrix.

Continuing down the page, "Merman" identifies himself as as a single, straight Aquarius who wants children "someday" and attended "some college." (Allen dropped out of Washington State University before going on to found Microsoft with Bill Gates, another college dropout.) The background picture is of a man scuba diving. Even behind the mask, it's pretty clear who that is.

Of course, there are the obligatory fake details, such as Merman's age (102) and hometown (Timbuktu, Mali).

But the real clue to Merman's identity is contained in the public messages along the right rail of the site. On Jan. 21 of this year, several of Merman's friends made a point of logging on and wishing him a happy birthday. Yep, you guessed it. That just happens to be Allen's birthday.

Sorry, Paul. There's always Facebook.

[Update: Here's a screen grab from the profile page.]