What's The Origin of Automagically?

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.