One of Internet's most prolific tech leakers retires, as tweeting can't help him earn enough

New Delhi: The once-anonymous prolific tech leaker - @evleaks - who gave the world and eager technology journalists a peep at many best-selling devices much before they were officially launched, has finally called it a day and that too after only two years of running his popular Twitter account.

Evan Blass, who revealed his real identity last year, announced his retirement in a tweet that has been retweeted over a thousand times. "All good things must come to an end. Thank you for an amazing two years. [RETIREMENT]," he tweeted.

Given the incredible popularity of his leaks, though many a time he was off the mark, that were eagerly lapped up by almost all technology news outlets, the news of his sudden retirement came as a surprise.

In an interview to The Next Web, Blass explained the reasons behind his decision. "Trying to monetize a stream of Twitter leaks is not easy. First I tried monthly sponsorships. Then weekly. Then single sponsored tweets. I took donations - felt like online panhandling," he says.

That most of his users were tech savvy actually turned into a disadvantage when it came to monetising his recently launched website. "Most of my tech-savvy-heavy audience seem to be pretty heavy ad-block users," Blass says and this meant the the advertisements he put up on this site were not displayed to the users and therefore he couldn't also earn enough from online advertising.

Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Blass says that he needs to prepare himself for the future, financially and intends to start another career.

Evan Blass, worked with the popular technology blog Engadget from 2005 to 2008 rising to the rank of Senior Editor and later he was Managing Editor at Pocketnow.com. It was after leaving Pocketnow that he started @evleaks which at the time of posting had over 187,000 followers and that includes the who's who of technology journalism from around the world.