My back-in-the-day PC Computing colleague John Montgomery, now in charge of Microsoft’s Popfly [*][**], has a list of 10 (yes, I know … please see #8) delightfully ironic predictions for 2008. I especially liked this one:
I predict that software will continue to have bugs. Further, I predict that periodically A-list bloggers and reporters will rise up in outrage about said bugs and will somehow lay the blame at the feet of Microsoft regardless of who wrote the OS or software in question.
I’ll add one of my own:
Speculators will begin snapping up shrink-wrapped copies of Windows XP around June 30, when Microsoft officially stops selling OEM copies. Prices will briefly spike at $399 per copy and then the bubble will burst when people realize, “Hey, it’s freakin’ Windows XP.”
Who else wants to make some predictions?
[*] Ironically, the Popfly link above goes to another of John’s top 10 lists, proving that to a magazine editor (even one who has been out of the biz since well before the turn of the century) anything can be turned into a top 10 list. In the early 1990s, when computer magazines routinely hit 500 pages, there was a brief era of list inflation that peaked with PC Computing’s 201 Windows Tips. I believe the current record-holder is the best-selling travel book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die.
[**] And just in case you haven’t had your minimum daily requirement of irony, I note that PC World magazine, where I used to work before PC Computing, just picked Popfly as as one of the 25 Most Innovative Products of 2007. I learned this by reading a post on John’s blog.
Ed Bott (@ wordpress.com) 