Each year we attempt to identify certain trends in computing that
will force themselves into the public's consciousness. I bet you
already know what they are; this is, after all, the second month of the
year, and prognostications have been as thick on the Web as CD-ROMs
without serial numbers in the shoebox in your closet. (Even groundhogs
are making predictions today!)
The only reason left to read the article that follows is to point
out my errors, and without further blah blah blah, here is the Lite
Side's
Predictions of What Retrospective Articles in the
Field of Personal Computing will Be about at the End of 2004
or
Looking Ahead at Our Behind
January: Steve Jobs announces the iPod mini at Macworld.
Kinko's opens an online music store, offering single tracks for
80¢ each, with a 5¢ discount if your order a thousand and are
willing to wait until Thursday to pick them up. Apple introduces the
KiloMac, and Steve demonstrates how
the interior can be used a parking garage for the Volkswagen iMouse
(USB cable not included).
February: Dell comes out with its Dellicious, a tiny MP3
player slightly larger than the iPod mini and with sixteen times as
many ports. In fact, every square inch of the device has a port of some
kind, making it difficult to find the buttons that operate it. Dell
defends its design as providing "choice" for consumers. Kmart opens an
online store that provides temporary 50¢ downloads at unannounced
times when its home page is flashing blue. Pepsi launches its iTunes
bottle cap free download promotion during the Super Bowl.
March: Sales figures for the Apple iTunes Music Store fall
below 50% of total online music sales, with every other vendor combined
taking the lead. Rob Enderle uses this as evidence that the iTMS is
"doomed" and earns another Death
Knell. Radio Shack opens an online music store and charges $3
per download. Cnet reports on the new phenomenon of teen dumpster
diving for iTunes caps.
April: The nation of Swaziland declares it will no longer
purchase Microsoft products and will convert completely to obsolete DOS
systems it finds in neighboring countries' dumpsters. The king of
Swaziland kidnaps three brides in one day and makes international
headlines. Holland starts an online Music Store, but makes no sales
because no one can understand how their spelling works. Fifteen people
in Michigan are arrested for removing all the bottle caps from a gross
of Pepsi bottles in a Meijer store, leaving the Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and
Sierra Mist behind.
May: On Friends, Ross is shown using a Dellicious MP3
player while Rachel uses an iPod mini. Sales of the Dellicious plummet.
On ER, Dr. Carter gives everyone iPod minis for putting up with
his self-righteous Africa stories. Halliburton starts an online music
store, dubbed the HMS Titanic, that provides music to our boys in Iraq
(yes, they're still there). Halliburton charges the Pentagon $459.34
per download. Supplies of Pepsi run out in major metropolitan
markets.
June: The entire state of California's fiscal crisis is
temporarily solved by a major earthquake that traps Michael Jackson in
an underground parking garage. The influx of paparazzi provide a
much-needed boost to the local economy. Jackson is rescued but accuses
the firefighters of squeezing his arm too tight when they hauled him
out of his tiny spider-hole. Deprived of his regular medicine,
Jackson's skin darkens. Newsweek is accused of darkening his
skin too much in its cover picture. When asked what he wants first
after being rescued, Jackson says, "I want a Pepsi so I can get a free
iTunes download," for which he is compensated enough to pay off a day's
worth of legal fees. The Nation of Islam starts a music download
service, which fails utterly due to various conspiracies managed by the
Bush administration.
July: The Pepsi iTunes promotion ends, primarily due a
shortage of bottle plastic. Apple identifies several customers who
purchased iPods to take advantage of the free downloads, but the ads
are dismissed as too Switch-like. Rob Enderle predicts the Pepsi
promotion will cause Pepsi to go bankrupt just out of association with
Apple, and earns a Death Knell Echo. Paris
Hilton starts a music download service that tanks when everyone
finds out there is no video to download. iTunes for Linux is announced,
but no one who uses Linux will download it due to a really vicious
flame war on Slashdot.
August: Over seventeen thousand music download services have
started. Slate predicts that by the end of 2005, everyone will have a
download service of their own, which ironically brings us back to the
situation we had when Napster (first edition) existed, except that now
everyone is getting paid one cent per download. Apple drops its
download price to 50¢. City dumps are reporting wholesale looting
of old Pepsi bottles until someone tells the looters more are to be
found at the recycling center. On The Simpsons, Homer starts a
music download service but cannot make it operate without Lisa's help.
Lisa argues there are too many digital rights restrictions on
downloaded music and refuses to participate, dooming Homer's venture to
failure. Fortunately, he makes just enough money to pay off his
expenses, and the family is left in the same condition as when the
episode started.
September: Osama bin Laden is captured in Miami masquerading
as Dave Barry, who is off playing semiprofessional football with a
group of writers called the Untouchables. bin Laden reveals where
millions of unclaimed Pepsi bottle caps are stashed in a mountain cave
in Afghanistan, and also where he hid Saddam's Weapons of Mass
Destruction. It turns out they were in an old Maxwell House coffee can
in his closet. It is well known on the Net that bin Laden uses a
Dellicious, but the Massive Right Wing Conspiracy successfully keeps
this information from becoming widely known. Al Qaeda starts a free
music download service. After downloading music, however, there is a
significant chance your hard drive will explode, but only if you listen
to four Dixie Chicks tracks in a row.
October: The presidential race heats up. Howard Dean publicly declares
his support for Apple and declares that Windows has caused everything
from SARS to the not-guilty verdict for Michael Jackson. Ron Enderle
predicts that Dean will lose the election because of Apple, and earns
an Apple Death Knell by Association. Apple responds by not posting
anything about Dean on their Hot News site. President Bush accepts Dick
Cheney's resignation for health reasons and selects John Ashcroft as
his running mate for November. Condoleeza Rice is seriously ticked.
President Bush is given an iPod in a public setting and is seen
dropping it and accidentally stepping on it - and pronounces the name
of the device as "i - pooed." The Mac Observer notes in its spin that
the iPod still works after Bush stomps on it. Low End Mac starts a music download service offering
44k 8-bit mono MP0* tracks digitized on a Mac IIfx using SoundRecorder,
Dan's personal LP collection, and a 20-year-old turntable at the
low-end price of 10¢, just as the bottom falls completely out of
the start-a-download-service frenzy. Dan is seriously ticked.
November: During the election, Florida's election system
works fine, but California's melts down due to a flaw in the Windows
web server managing the distribution of ballots. Bush determines this
is due to a terrorist attack on the server using the new NOSEBLEED
virus that causes a denial of service attack on the election server.
Microsoft issues its three hundredth patch of the year and says the
fault lies with the IT technicians in the election office who didn't
apply the patch. Microsoft's download service is discovered to
automatically download music for you every time you turn on the
computer, charging your account 99¢ each time without your
knowledge. Despite outrage over this development on the Net, the
mainstream press ignores the problem and in no one else notices.
Microsoft promises to refund the money to anyone who claims it for a
small handling fee of $1.98. Unclaimed funds will be donated to an
obscure school of Music in Thailand. Oh, and Bush is reelected. A
protester is arrested for throwing some of the few remaining unclaimed
Pepsi iTunes download promotion caps at him.
December: Overvalued downloading music store stocks collapse,
leaving behind a wasteland of canceled services, expiring music
registrations that cannot be activated, and a general economic
slowdown. AOL starts a Netscape-branded music download service (along
with a Netscape-branded shoe and a Netscape-branded beer), forgetting
it has an exclusive deal with Apple. Apple recaptures a greater than
50% market share but is widely blamed for causing the overall reduction
in the volume of downloads by Ron Enderle, earning him a Manslaughter
Knell. Executives at Tyco reveal they have established a deal where
everyone who buys a toy gets a used, but washed, Pepsi bottle cap.
Unfortunately these turn out to be ordinary bottle caps, not
free-download-bottle-caps, as Tyco has completely misinterpreted the
whole bottle-cap phenomenon. Prisoners ini California prisons begin
wearing soda-bottle-cap necklaces, and necklaces made of used iTunes
promotional caps go for hundreds of dollars. A new fashion trend
emerges in the nation's high schools but doesn't really take off until
Rush Limbaugh makes fun on it - clothes with bottle-cap buttons. Apple
is widely recognized at the source for this fashion shift, though as
usual it cannot derive any profit from it. Bill O'Reilly starts a music
download service "for real Americans" during an interview of Steve
Jobs, whom he tells to "shut up."
