My earlier post on the Osbourne Effect has gotten unusual attention, so I checked my weblogs and discovered the “Osbourne Effect” is the fourth most popular search string bringing fans to MT.Net. (In case you’re wondering, the most popular search string is “raleigh blogging dork.” Go figure.)
The fact that MT.Net is crowned by Google as a defacto expert on the Osbourne Effect (second result as of this writing) tells you of the dearth of pages on the topic. Fortunately, it seems that Wikipedia now covers the Osbourne Effect, whereas it apparently did not before. MT.Net applauds Wikipedia’s stepping up to the plate and delivering another high-quality chapter to its collection.
I do not look forward to their eventual entry for raleigh blogging dork.
[Update: 20 Jun 2005]
It looks like I became an expert on the “Osbourne Effect” as such a thing does not actually exist. As this page points out,
This, of course, is different from The Osbourne Effect, which causes you wander around your mansion, mumbling incoherently about how your kids are using more drugs now than you ever did and how your dogs are always leaving steaming turds all over the carpet.
The effect I meant to cite was the Osborne Effect. My post got ranked on the hits because I mispelled it. Heh.
You do deserve some props for getting the Osbourne angle before others *cough*Cringley*cough* jumped on it.
But I still think it’s bunk. Your PC (or Mac, for that matter) is always going to be obsolete a year after you buy it anyway. Doesn’t matter what Apple and Intel are doing.
It’s not like a PPC Mac bought today will quit working in 12 months.
No, I’m right. Apple’s PPC sales will drop off considerably while potential buyers wait for the Intel boxes. Its different this time around in that Apple has a buttload of cash, enough to ride out any turbulance. They’ll survive.
What convinced me of Apple’s success is that most Mac users could give a hoot about what guts are inside their computers. They don’t want to know. They just want the pretty beach balls to spin as fast as possible. If Intel chips do that for them, hey, let the party roll on.
Leo Laporte mentioned it in last week’s This Week in Tech podcast (episode 7, I think).