Brad Feld

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What’s The Origin of Automagically?

Nov 22, 2007

While catching up on some stuff today, I came across the word “automagically” on Bebo.

I first heard the word from Todd Vernon.  Todd is now the CEO of Lijit, but at the time he was CTO of Raindance.  It it one of my favorite Vernonisms, up there with “chocolatey goodness” (used to describe a wonderful computer hack or feature.)

I use automagically all the time – it’s a nice shorthand for Arthur C. Clarke’s third law of prediction: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  I occasionally see it in the wild on blog posts every now and then, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen it used in a web service.  Oh happy day.

Oh yeah – I’m bradf037 on Bebo in case you want to be my friend (I’m really lonely today.)  Dear people at Bebo – your AIM Friend Finder is hanging on “Loading Authentication…” today.