…No one knows who Hubert is?

Warning: Hubert is part of a game created by Phill Ryu to promote MacHeist, a new Mac application site. The goal of the game is to follow Hubert around through various Apple related websites, with the eventual goal of finding all of the Huberts (there are 12) and receiving a free application. If you enjoy this sort of thing, visit WhoIsHubert.com and play the game. It’s a challenging maze of links, and one that is sure to entertain. The following story was created during the process of discovering Hubert (there will be plenty of spoilers), so if you don’t want to discover him on your own, read on to learn a little more about who is Hubert.

Hubert is a little monkey icon making his way around a variety of Mac related sites lately, and he’s creating quite a stir with his mysterious appearances. Is it a new as yet unannounced Mac app? Is it some sort of computer helper, ala BonziBUDDY? Is it just a big hoax to get people wondering who Hubert is? The website WhoIsHubert.com offers few clues, besides the Fight Club-esque warning “Don’t Talk About Hubert” (Update: don’t is misspelled with two t’s: dont’t) seen above (guess that didn’t work too well), and a mysterious belly button link to Unsanity Products (with an eventual link to Potion Factory which hides Hubert pretty well). I’m sure all will be revealed in due time (and of course DYH will be there to bring you all the juicy details), and considering his prominent placement on the Disco app page, I’ll bet Hubert will turn out to be a great reason to pull out the wallet and pour some iCash into your computer once again. Post clues in the comments as you discover them, and maybe we can solve this mystery together.

Update: It looks like Hubert is making a pretty predominant appearance on Phill Ryu’s Widget Machine, but it’s a clue rather than a widget. When you click on Download, it takes you to a site for David Watanabe’s Inquisitor 3, and tells you to find Hubert’s brother. The plot thickens.

Update: This one is getting thicker by the minute. First off, he’s no longer showing on the Widget Machine website (except for a little bit poking out from behind the Black ‘n’ Blue widget). Then, a man named Hubert posted on TUAW that “Phil is not my father” (looks like Phill Ryu is out of the picture). Then, he’s making a guest appearance on the Inquisitor website, and when you click on him, it takes you to a temporarily 404 page on the WhoIsHubert.com website (http://www.whoishubert.com/hush/) though now it forwards to MyDreamApp. Where will this lead to next?

Update: Austin Sarner is one of the men behind AppZapper, Disco, MyDreamApp, and now, according to his website, a new app called MonkeyLover, but the MonkeyLover link only takes you to http://www.monkeyloveapp.com/, a site that doesn’t load (though if you manually type in http://www.monkeyloverapp.com/, you get something different entirely…). Also, if you go to the websites for Checkout (make by Austin Sarner’s Made By SOFA design group) and Disco, you’ll find small Hubert monkeys hidden somewhere on the page. Why are you hiding Hubert? Come out and play.

Update: Hubert Club now has a second rule: “Keep You Enemies Close”. Click on that (Update: though only the word enemies is linked), and it again takes you to MyDreamApp. Why are you angry Hubert? Why?

Update: Hubert’s now posting reviews on Acqualia’s World Of Where. It’s linked to from the Potion Factory Website, and it links to iusethis.com’s about page, which again links to Phill Ryu’s page. World Of Where is Hubert indeed.

Update: Thanks to a rush of diggers, and some clever work by DYHers, the mystery has been solved. It looks like Hubert is indeed a promotional tool for the newly released MacHeist. Phill Ryu is indeed Hubert’s daddy, and he reveals that Hubert is a wild Monkey chase through a series of over a dozen Mac related websites with the eventual goal of earning a piece of free software (no big surprise there). I’m not going to post the final web address, since that sort of defeats the purpose of the whole game, but I will post one big clue to help you out: this game runs full circle. To everyone who helped solve this mystery, thanks for your help, and congratulations on solving a game before it even officially began.

[Hubert on PhillRyu.com]

[Hubert on Awaken]

[Hubert on Earth Desk]

[Hubert on Overflow]

Update: There’s a new rule: “Use Them Like They Use You”. Does the story continue?

Update: So some guy named Sonic Julez posted a pic of Hubert running on his MacBook Pro as a program called Who Is Hubert? on his Flickr page. Real? Photoshoped? Imagined?

[WhoIsHubert.com]

[Digg]

[Hubert on Disco]

[Hubert on iClip]

[Hubert on ShapeShifter]

[Hubert on Potion Factory]

[Hubert on Widget Machine]

[Hubert on Inquisitor]

[Hubert on Checkout]

[Hubert on Disco]

[Hubert on World Of Where]

[Austin Sarner]

[SOFA]

[Wikipedia - BonziBUDDY]

[Via: The Unofficial Apple Weblog]

Tagged as: Acqualia, App, AppZapper, Austin-Sarner, Awaken, BonziBUDDY, Checkout, David-Watanabe, Disco, Dont-Talk-About-Hubert, Earth-Desk, Fight-Club, Hubert, iCash, iClip, Icon, Inquisitor, iusethis.com, Mac, Monkey, MonkeyLover, My-Dream-App, MyDreamApp, Overflow, Phill-Ryu, Potion-Factory, ShapeShifter, SOFA, Unsanity-Products, Who-Is-Hubert, WhoIsHubert.com, Widget-Machine, World-Of-Where