From the site ...
Founder's Corner: Dedicated to MOSR founder Ryan C. Meader
You can donate to the "Get-Well Fund" that Xerces has created for Ryan & his young family by clicking this button (Major CC's, PayPal) or scrolling to the end of the page for more details. Our sincere thanks to all of the compassionate readers who have helped us thus far to get this family, devastated by chronic pain and disability, back on their feet!
(paypal link here)
When Rumors was first published in 1995, I had no idea that it would become such a unique part of Mac history.
I grew up without a computer of my own, except for outdated classics such as the Timex SINCLAIR, Commodore 64, and VMS VAX which came to me from relatives who had retired from positions as Computer Science professors. I was raised on Macs from a young age at public school, and had developed a passion for using them; but didn't have one of my own.
This, of course, led to many older friends whose families had early Macs. I spent countless hours at those friends' homes, and in a few cases life-long bonds were forged. Eventually, as I entered high school, many of those friends went on to work throughough the computer industry. A handful even went on to work for Apple and other companies with critical roles to play in the future of the Macintosh.
Thanks to those friends with inside information, b the time of Apple's greatest apparent peril, circa 1995-97 arrived, I was privvy to facts that the general public -- and even the nascent Mac Web -- weren't aware of. This made me incredibly bullish about Apple's future and excited about new products that were on their way.....notably, the iMac, Mac OS X, the iPod, the PowerPC G3-G4-G5, and more recently, the Intel transition. All at a time when even the most die-hard Mac fans were in doubt over Apple's future....and that was what first set us apart: a very bullish and confidently positive view of what was to come at a time when virtually everyone else was full of Doom, Gloom, and Merger Rumors.
MOSR took off rapidly, and within its first year was receiving more than 100,000 page views per day. In time, a team of regular contributors and sources was formed and these helped me break several crucial stories -- one of the most famous being our exclusive prediction that Steve Jobs would push Gil Amelio out of the Apple board and take over as "iCEO". From there, we received a lot of attention in the mainstream press (New York Times, Business 2.0, Associated Press, Casco Bay Weekly, LA Times etc) and for a time I wrote a Rumormongering column for MacAddict Magazine.
In the year 2001, my previous life as a professional downhill mountain bike racer in my mid-teens caught up with me in combination with a series of severe accidents, injuries and infections. These, in turn, led to two diagnoses -- Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrom and Reiter Syndrome AKA Reactive Arthritis -- which have left me in severe chronic pain for the past five years. As many readers have noticed, the site became erratic during that time as the condition make it progressively harder for me to focus on my writing, and forced me to choose between old projects, like Rumors, and new web sites I have been developing for the Xerces Media cooperative.
Eventually I turned MOSR over to a team of Xerces partners and former sources/contributors. That kept the site alive for nearly four years, although it was quite erratic at times and technical issues began to pile up behind the scenes.
In 2007, I hope to return to a regularly scheduled column that will be featured on Mac OS Rumors; in the mean time, the site is being run primarily by senior editor Sunn Li and long-time insider source "Tron." They will be seeking to recruit new writers, sources & reporters for the interim, but in the long term our intention is to either turn over the editorial/publishing component of the site over to an independent team in a revenue-sharing agreement....or to sell the site off wholesale to someone who is able to pay a fair buyout price for what is one of the most popular Tech sites on the Web.
In the meantime, I continue to face a daily battle with chronic pain that may last for the rest of my life. I am presently at work on several new projects for Xerces, from the Black Hole general-interest discussion forum to upcoming all-platforms tech site The Power User.
About 11 months ago, my wife and I brought our first child, Alexander Phoenix, into the world....and between the staggering medical bills, raising our son, and the work challenges that have accumulated as I have been progressively more disabled (physically, mentally & emotionally) by my chronic pain, we have gone deeper into debt and fallen behind on many fronts.
As we began site-redesign here on Rumors in early December 2006, the Xerces partners strongly encouraged me to write this history of the site and my involvement in it, and to extend a personal request to anyone who might be willing to lend me and my family a hand in recovering from the devastation of the past five years.
If you have enjoyed Rumors over the past 12 years, have benefitted from the coverage we provide, or if you just want to help out a young family that is teetering on the edge of total disability and bankruptcy.....please consider making a donation to the "Get-Well Fund" that the Xerces partners have established for settling our medical debts which are in the tens of thousands of dollars.
The simplest way to do so is to use the button below: all major credit cards are accepted, and you don't need a PayPal account (although paying from your PayPal account is also an option) to use it.
(paypal link here)
Alternately, we can accept snail-mailed donations and other payment methods if desired: just email us at
x@xerces.com for more information.
Regardless of whether you choose to help me, my wife and our son cope with the financial and emotional problems that have built up over the past five years since I first fell victim to these two disabling pain conditions.....thanks to all for taking the time to make Rumors part of their online lives over the past decade and for taking an interest in its history -- as well as my own.
Rumors and its remarkable community of readers will always hold a special place in my heart, regardless of my level of direct participation in its publishing and whether we end up partially, or entirely, turning the site over to new owners. Thanks to all who have emailed Xerces with supportive words, and to everyone who has worked so hard to keep MOSR running -- warts and all -- in my absence. We have created something very special together, and I am very excited to see what happens next!
-RCM.
