With dozens of Mac news sites already vying for the attention of the Macintosh faithful and the advertisers they bring with them, it takes a little chutzpah to create a "rival" publication dedicated to poking fun at all the hubbub surrounding Apple.
But As the Apple Turns, which launched in late September, has a handle on how to find the fun in the doom and gloom reports spilling forth from Cupertino. This week, for example, the site hosted a Beat the Analysts contest - something a few companies who missed Wall Street's beguiling expectations would probably enjoy - for Mac fans to tell Apple's fortune, before the company released its latest quarterly results.
The winner, who seems to have been among the least optimistic of some 800 participants, came in with a US$137 million loss - just a few bills off the $161 million-loss reported - and "wins a shrinkwrapped copy of LucasArts' smash megahit from years past, Rebel Assault II," according to the site.
"I've got a disease that makes me buy software that costs less than $5 - and I've finally got a use for it," Jack Miller, creator of As the Apple Turns, said in explaining the prize choice. (The fact that he broke his ankle and couldn't get to the discount software seller limited the prize options to his personal stash.)
The site, he said, is his antidote to all the soap-operatic coverage devoted to Apple. Miller, who is a systems engineer at a medical device and software company in Massachusetts, says most Apple news is presented with the "woe is me" hyper-drama of a soap opera, giving his site its name and its raison d'être.
"We wanted to give people a site with news and rumor, and pure and utter fabrication, that's funnier and lighter and makes them feel better about their computing choice," said Miller, who owns a collection of Macs, including an SE he pulled out of the trash with hopes of turning it into an aquarium. (With a few part replacements, though, he got the thing working - but it crashes every few minutes.)
Miller got his first advertiser on Day One and quickly sold out all the banner space he had available in the short term. Maybe it's an auspicious sign - but in the Apple drama, one never knows.
The MacInsider news and gossip site seemed to be marching full steam ahead - and had just struck a deal with another fount of Apple info, MacCentral, for a jointly produced column to be published on both sites. Then the gossip hounds at MacInsider posted a farewell note on Thursday evening. "They just dropped out of sight," said Stan Flack, president of MacCentral. Rumors were flying that the site operators had been hired away by big-media concerns or reprimanded by Apple, but Flack, at least, on Friday had heard not one official word about the demise of MacInsider, or the fate of the shared column. The site's current message - that the evangelists who once held forth there have retired - makes for just the kind of dramatic exit that keeps people tuning back in to the Apple soap opera.
