Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

An army of very clever people have been thinking long and hard about how best to integrate print media in the digital world. Some abandoned ship long ago, while a few loyal souls appear determined to stick to their post and go down with HMAS Old Media.

Perhaps the simplest concept is to have print, in all its page-turning glory, embedded online. Several companies have been offering this service for a while now, but they generally produced clunky, counter-intuitive renderings of the original print versions. The experience sucked, and publishers were mostly charged an extortionate price for the pleasure.

Thankfully, a slick, free Danish service called Issuu is finally delivering impressive results. Anyone can upload their PDFs, which are converted to flash and displayed on Issuu for public or private access. You don’t have to be a magazine publisher - your promotional materials and books will work just fine. Click the edge of the page and it turns, revealing the next spread (almost like the real thing). Issuu recently upgraded its technology, meaning higher compatibility with a variety of uploaded documents. So now most print documents can be read as they were originally intended.

We’ve been testing Issuu for a while and we’re pleased to offer you a sample edition of Anthill on Issuu to browse through. If you dig it (and Anthill), you can even embed it in your own website/blog or on your Facebook/MySpace profile. We’ll be adding more back issues over the coming weeks.

Check it out. It’s free and captures at least some of the magic of print that generally lost in online content.

Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

Global economic news, never a bundle of laughs at the sunniest of times, has been stripped of all but the darkest shades of mirth in recent months. But laugh we must. So here it is, a shard of peat-black humour plucked straight from the shattered looking-glass now resting at our feet.

The Brokers With Hands on their Faces Blog contains photos, one after another, of stock brokers touching different parts of their faces as they watch on in disbelief at recent manic market machinations. The blog contains no words, for none are required. Amateur anthropologists with a wicked streak prefer their irony served raw.

Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

The human desire to work more effectively pre-dates the pyramids. Entire forests have been razed in the production of roadmaps to boosting personal organisation and productivity. (The seminal book Getting Things Done (GTD), by American productivity guru Dave Allen, alone must surely have a carbon footprint to rival that of a middle-tier European nation.)

Modern technology and information overload have been good for business for the “life hacking” industry. Just ask Tim Ferriss, author of The Four-Hour Work Week, who has grown famous disseminating his seductive thesis that teaches us how to work more effectively and much, much less. (Read Valerie Khoo’s recent profile of Ferriss in Anthill.)

It’s an intriguing prospect and an eyeball-popping title. But begin implementing GTD methods and one quickly realises that, like new diets or ab crunch machines advertised on TV when viewers are at their most vulnerable, there are no shortcuts. Productivity is about focus, and focus is about casting aside all that splinters and erodes focus.

I recently stumbled on a blog post by Ferriss entitled, The Not-To-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now. In it, Ferriss argues that to-do lists are important, but not as important as not-to-do lists, which isolate all the things that prevent us from getting through our to-do lists. My favourite - #2: “Do not e-mail first thing in the morning or last thing at night” - is a goal that I still fail miserably to accomplish, most of the time.

Check out Ferriss’s ‘not-to-do list’ list. I’ll bet you are still practising at least a couple of these nine bad habits.

Photo: aussiegall

Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

Most people at one time or another have wished they could travel back in time to impart sage advice to their younger selves. While that may not be possible, there is a long tradition of saving ‘time capsules’ of information for future revisiting.

I recall my primary school, with much fanfare, burying artefacts of the day in anticipation of digging them up again in the year 2000. While I wasn’t there for the grand uncovering, the contents of that magical box from 1983 - a Leo Sayer album, a super-spin yo-yo, a hypercolour T-shirt and photos of a bunch of bemused working class kids in Adelaide’s northern suburbs - must surely have been somewhat underwhelming to millennial archaeologists.

These days, you can get in touch with your future self without getting your hands dirty, thanks to FutureMe. At first glance, the site looks a bit redundant. Write an email to yourself and schedule it to be sent at a future date - tomorrow, next week… next decade. But the more I thought about it, the more the simple genius of the concept grew on me.

So much of our ephemeral realities, all important in the moment, slip away with the passage of time, along with the insights and lessons they contain. It’s why people keep journals. But let’s face it, a journal takes serious commitment to sustain over years and decades.

FutureMe contains a public message section, and there is even a book, both of which are replete with intimate, funny, narcissistic and often heartbreaking emails: the message written by the graduating teen, the pregnant woman, the old man dying of cancer. The site is filled with vicarious fascination and reminded me of PostSecret, where people share and mail their anonymous secrets by postcard.

So go ahead, spend a few moments writing to your future self about how life is today, and how you hope it to be at a moment of your choosing in the future. Then schedule it, and get back to work.

Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

Ahhh, Google. What did we ever do without you?

I find it quite reassuring that Google, the money-making internet juggernaut, occasionally lets a flourish of humour escape from its well-oiled machine.

Today, Gmail Labs released a new feature called “Mail Goggles”, which introduces obstacles to protect users from their own ill-conceived, inebriated communiqués.

To quote the Official Gmail Blog:

When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?

It’s great to see Google’s engineers working on solutions to real problems in their 20% free time, rather than, say, building robot armies.

To my mind, the only way Mail Goggles could be improved is by introducing an occasional secondary pop-up, even (especially) if you get the arithmetic challenge correct. These could include:

“He’s not interested.”
“She’s broke your heart, dude.”
“Move ON!”
Or an audio message, in a C-3PO voice: “Master [name], I really must advise against this!”

But then, that would be implausible, as Google only does algorithms.

Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

Serendipitous discovery is one of the great joys of the web. Sure, standard search provides its share of satisfying conquest, but digital serendipity truly came of age back in December 2001 with the launch of StumbleUpon, a browser plugin that applied a special algorithm to send users to potentially unexpected and interesting sites every time they clicked the “Stumble” button.

The real genius of StumbleUpon resides in the users’ ability to mark up interest categories and then thumb up or down the sites they like or dislike, thus refining their future Stumble “recommendations” and those of the broader Stumble community. The service is known for its uncanny ability to throw forward fascinating sites that aren’t on the most popular pages of Digg and delicious.

In 2007, eBay purchased StumbleUpon for US$75 million. In recent weeks, speculation has swirled that eBay is preparing to sell the service, having never integrated it into its core e-commerce business. StumbleUpon’s web traffic has stagnated, but, as StumbleUpon CEO Garrett Camp recently pointed out, these web stats are misleading because users don’t need to visit the site to “stumble”. And registrations have continued to grow unabated.

StumbleUpon took a big leap forward this week, launching a web service that doesn’t require users to install the browser toolbar - hitherto one of the main obstacles to broader uptake. The new service is initially only available to new users (ie those who don’t already have the browser plugin), but it is expected to be rolled out to everyone in the near future.

StumbleUpon has also introduced a new partner program, with The Huffington Post, HowStuffWorks, Rolling Stone and National Geographic already signed up. Participating sites will display a StumbleUpon widget beside their articles, which will allow readers to “Stumble” through pages within that site.

StumbleUpon is one of the most innovative and addictive services on the web. And now, after many years of ‘cult favourite’ status, it looks like it has finally settled on a web strategy that will take it mainstream.

If you’ve never “stumbled” online before, try out the new web offering. You’ll be hooked. (Warning: Just don’t expect to get much work done this afternoon. Stumbling makes YouTube look like homework in comparison.)

Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

In the age of YouTube, Facebook and Oprah, it should come as no surprise that people like to share their personal lives with the whole world. What is astonishing is the extent to which some people entrust the ultra-personal detritus of their lives to the collective wisdom of the World Wide Mob. A case in point: SideTaker.com.

So you’re in a relationship and there is a point of disagreement that cannot be resolved through the trusted everyday channels of compromise, guilt or abstinence blackmail. Not to worry. Now you can post both sides of the dispute on SideTaker and let the world decide who is right and who is being “difficult”.

It’s likely that some of the domestic disputes on SideTaker are bogus, but most seem legitimate. Some are funny and some are quite sad, but all carry the scent of minor but intractable disputes turned atomic by public airing. After all, the vast majority of disagreements between couples seem petty to everyone but the two people in disagreement.

But this doesn’t stop them seeking affirmation, nor the world from providing it.

Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

The good folks over at TechNation Australia (TNA) have begun compiling a monthly Aussie Startup Index, which ranks the highest trafficked Australian startup websites.

The final figures are arrived at by averaging each site’s global Alexa and Compete rankings – only sites with a ranking of less than one million are listed (lower is better).

Not sure how TechNation is defining “startup”, as the list contains a few companies that are well and truly ready to leave the nest (ie Atlassian). But it contains several sites I hadn’t heard of so I’m betting there are some in there that you’re not aware of either. This can only be a good thing, as exposure is like oxygen for Aussie web start-ups.

The Index was launched in August and the September rankings are now live. Check it out, and let them know if your web startup isn’t included in their Startup Australia wiki list.

Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

Sadly, I’m stuck chasing deadlines this week.

As such, I’ve not had the opportunity to scout the Internet and deliver to you, our expectant readers, my regular enewsletter post: Website of the Week.

However, in the spirit of Anthill’s ongoing Magazine 2.0 Experiment, I thought that perhaps you could help me out?

This is your chance to suggest an Australian website that you think is seriously unique and deserving of our recognition. The best suggestion will be featured as part of our regular New Media column in the Dec/Jan edition of Anthill Magazine.

So readers… What website do you think should be our ‘Website of the Week’?

Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

I admit to not understanding many of the intricacies of high finance. After all, I studied Arts at university (and even began a PhD in US presidential history, before escaping with a pulse). They don’t tend to teach futures trading and shorting 101 between civil war battles and Nietzsche.

Now, with the advent of online prediction markets, an abiding interest in US politics can see me trading like Gordon Gekko, on familiar ground.

InTrade.com, an Irish website established in 2001, allows anyone to trade on non-sporting events around the globe. This isn’t like SportsBet. This is real trading.

For an example, let’s stay with the US election theme. When the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain chose Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, InTrade opened a ticket on whether she would withdraw as his running mate before election day. The market opened offering a three percent chance she would not make it to 4 November, but jumped to 18.9 percent within a couple of days as rumours of scandal swirled. Had she been thoroughly vetted? Did she use her position as Governor to have her ex-brother-in-law fired? Was her fifth child actually her grandchild? What’s that? Her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant out of wedlock?!

As on any sophisticated trading market, InTrade users can buy and sell on a live ticket at any time. A ticket is only closed when the proposition being traded on has either a 100 percent or a 0 percent chance of happening (ie - if Palin withdraws or makes it to election day on the Republican ticket). You just need to buy and sell at the right time. If you suspected that there were some skeletons in Palin’s closet that were likely to air, you could have bought in at three percent and cashed out at 18.9 percent. Or, you could stick with it on the hunch that she might reveal she is actually John McCain’s love-child. Or a man. Ka-Ching!

If politics isn’t your thing, InTrade’s prediction market also covers finance, weather, entertainment, legal, science & technology - pretty much anything non-sporting you can think of, you can trade on. (InTrade’s sister site, TradeSports, handles sport exclusively.)

And if you want to play the game without risking your hard-earned cash, there is a “practice” section on InTrade.com, as well as on the new beta site, InTrade.net.

Forget the roulette wheel or the Spring Racing Carnival. Get some skin in the game of life. The market is never wrong. There are only degrees of right.