There’s been a lot of speculation about the future of magazines, particularly with the advent of the iPad. With Apple’s latest shiny toy due for release in a matter of weeks, the publishing industry has been quick to embrace it as representing the future of publishing.

In this video, Los Angeles-based photographer Alexx Henry provides a ‘behind the scenes’ look into how he, and co-directors Cory Strassburger and Ming Hsiung, produced a motion cover for digital VIV magazine.

The technology used and the final film-noir ‘Sin City’ result are both gob smacking. Whether many publishers will have the budgets to produce this kind of immersive experience is another matter.

VIV Magazine – The Future of Magazine Covers?

ChatRoulette, the new hit social network created by a 17-year-old Russian that lets random people video chat with other random people (connected like roulette ball and number), is enjoying astounding growth — over 6,000% in the past three months.

Curious? Well it might not be your cup of tea, but this compilation video of Piano Chat Improv Guy is impressive, hilarious and does a better job of explaining what ChatRoulette is all about than any news article could. It’s been viewed almost 2.4 million times on YouTube in just over a week. And you’re about to see why.

Salty language warning: high

ChatRoulette Piano Improvisation

Many of you have been following our coverage (first here and a longer feature) of The Startup Bus, which threw together 25 ’strangers’ — entrepreneurs and techies, including nine Australians — on a 48-hour journey from San Francisco to the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas. Their goal: to collaborate against the clock and emerge at SXSW with fully-fledged startups to pitch to a panel of investors and judges on arrival.

The Startup Bus participants have been posting videos taken on the bus, including everyone’s introductory speeches. Here is primary organiser Elias Bizannes addressing the posse soon after departure. He makes some telling points about entrepreneurial networking and collaboration and the secret of success in Silicon Valley and other vibrant commercial hubs.

Hope you’re not prone to motion sickness, as it’s a bumpy ride!

Startup Bus, Elias Bizannes and the road to SXSW

They promised us flying cars, back in the day, and I don’t know about you but mine hasn’t been delivered yet. Never mind. For the time being I’ll settle for one of these.

The Martin Jetpack, developed by New Zealand’s Martin Aircraft Company (MAC), demonstrates just how far jetpack technology has come since Rocketman ignited the imaginations of little (and big) boys with his demonstration at the ‘84 Olympics in Los Angeles.

MAC recently signed a $12 million joint-venture deal to start production of the world’s first commercially available jetpack. The jetpack is powered by a 200 horsepower gasoline engine and can reach a top speed of just over 60mph, an altitude of 8,000 feet and fly for approximately 30 minutes on a full tank of fuel.

Each jetpack is expected to sell for $75,000, with private sales to commence later this year. MAC CEO Richard Lauder said the joint venture would build Martin Jetpacks at an overseas factory, with the aim of making 500 units generating annual turnover of $100 million within three years.

The Martin Jetpack demonstration

Rocketman from the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics

When nominations for the 2010 Telstra Business Awards opened late last month, Telstra Business Group Managing Director Deena Schiff summarised the value the award program to entrants:

“Running a small business can be a lonely job at times with owners usually working long hours often on their own – they don’t readily have the opportunity to get an independent assessment of how they are really travelling,” Ms Shiff said.

“Every year we get great feedback from entrants and finalists that entering the Awards has helped them focus and plan their businesses.”

If you don’t want to take Deena’s word for it, here’s the video.

Telstra Business Awards Video 2010

To nominate and enter, click here. Entries close at 5pm Eastern Standard Time on Friday 16 April 2010.

As founder of Oracle, one of the pre-internet powerhouse technology companies, you might expect Larry Ellison to be cynical of all this talk about cloud computing. He is.

The audio in this clip could be crisper, but Ellison’s sentiments couldn’t be clearer as he lampoons the fad labels such as “cloud computing” that the tech world embraces on a semi-annual basis.

Oracle’s Larry Ellison rains on the ‘cloud’

It must be hard differentiating a large accounting and advisory company like BDO from its competitors. How can a firm of bean counters distinguish its brand from the rest of the bushel? In this interview with Anthill’s James Tuckerman, BDO’s recently appointed CEO for New South Wales and Victoria Pat Donato talks about his plans for growth and how he intends to position BDO in the Australian advisory landscape.

Pat Donato, BDO

Pat Donato from BDO interviewed by James Tuckerman from Anthill Magazine on Vimeo.

Chicken restaurant chain Nando’s Australia is hoping to cash in on the Bingle-Clarke-breakup-saga zeitgeist with this latest promo declaring all Nando’s outlets ‘Bingle-free zones’.

The promo was announced via this press release and a spoof community service announcement radio spot (YouTube version embedded below), which Nando’s and the Melbourne-based creative agency behind the promo, The Sphere Agency, are no doubt hoping will go viral.

A nimble effort, though its effectiveness in selling chicken remains to be seen.

If you’re still skeptical about the power of viral marketing, you’ve obviously never heard of the band OK Go.

On July 31, 2006, the Chicago based outfit released a video for it’s song ‘Here It Goes Again‘ featuring an elaborately choreographed dance on treadmills, directed and choreographed by Trish Sie.

This video was viewed by over one million people on YouTube… in its first six days!

As of this month, the original video upload for ‘Here It Goes Again’ has been viewed over 50 million times, putting it in 42nd place for the most views of any video and 29th place for most viewed music video as well as the 7th most favorited video and the top favorited music video of all time on YouTube.

But where does a bodaciously brilliant band take its televisual talents next?

On 1 March 2010, OK Go’s latest endeavour (below) hit the YouTube charts like a freightchain, debuting in YouTube’s Top 20 trending clips for the week. It has already generated over seven million views.

Sure, it’s a film-clip for a rock band (hardly business related). But it, nonetheless, showcases a feat of extreme commercial creativity likely to inspire the mad inventor in all of us.

The video was filmed in a two story warehouse, in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The ‘machine’ was designed and built by the band, along with members of Syyn Labs over the course of several months.

Don’t try this at home. (But if you do, don’t forget to tell us about it!)

Hat tip to our friends at the Victorian Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development for suggesting this clip. Still waters run deep, eh?

Regular Anthill readers will know by now that we are big fans of the TED talks series. This talk by marketing maverick Seth Godin — delivered at the TED 2009 conference in Long Beach, California — ranks in the top 10 most popular TED talks of all time. And rightly so.

Over 18-minutes, Godin outlines his theory that the internet has banished the era of mass marketing, and that the ancient social unit of the tribe has returned, empowering ordinary people to lead extraordinary movements.

It’s both educational and inspirational viewing, as Godin conveys his message with purpose and humour (helped along by some witty photo slides).

I’ve been procrastinating today — though, technically, trawling for interesting web videos is part of my job description. Nevertheless, what a stroke of luck to stumble on a video homage to procrastination while procrastinating.

P.J. O’Rourke on procrastination

Procrastination comes in many forms, but it always involves avoiding whatever it is you should be doing. It’s all summed up perfectly in this passage by the inimitable US political humorist, P.J. O’Rourke:

“Usually, writers will do anything to avoid writing. For instance, the previous sentence was written at one o’clock this afternoon. It is now a quarter to four. I have spent the past two hours and forty-five minutes sorting my neckties by width, looking up the word “paisly” in three dictionaries, attempting to find the town of that name on The New York Times Atlas of the World map of Scotland, sorting my reference books by width, trying to get the bookcase to stop wobbling by stuffing a matchbook cover under its corner, dialing the telephone number on the matchbook cover to see if I should take computer courses at night, looking at the computer ads in the newspaper and deciding to buy a computer because writing seems to be so difficult on my old Remington, reading an interesting article on sorghum farming in Uruguay that was in the newspaper next to the computer ads, cutting that and other interesting articles out of the newspaper, sorting—by width—all the interesting articles I’ve cut out of newspapers recently, fastening them neatly together with paper clips and making a very attractive paper clip necklace and bracelet set, which I will present to my girlfriend as soon as she comes home from the three-hour low-impact aerobic workout that I made her go to so I could have some time alone to write.” [The Wit and Wisdom of P. J. O’Rourke]

Who knew you could do THAT in Excel?

For those who prefer to have actually created something when they arrive at the end of a solid procrastination, check out what this chap created using the least artistic software program on the planet. How is it even possible to get that good at drawing and Excel? World class procrastination.

Procrastination and Anthills

Do you know who never procrastinate? Ants. They just get the job done. The scientists in the video below poured ten tonnes of concrete down a giant anthill, let it set, then excavated the surrounding dirt to reveal an astonishingly elaborate and intricate subterranean abode.

OK. Back to work.

This spoof of “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys has been climbing up the viral charts. Produced by Pantless Knights, it’s a tribute to The New Dork ruling the roost in today’s tech world. It’s catchy, and you can even download the free MP3.

Hat tip: Tian Yang.

Arguably the most pervasive and frustrating internet meme over the past few years has been the practice of Rickrolling. But its evolution has taken the form of an even more annoying practice, called “Shredding”.

What is RickRolling?

Rickrolling takes place when a person provides a friend or colleague with web link that they claim is relevant to the receiver but the link actually takes the user to a video of Rick Astley singing his 1987 ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’.

For example, the Rickroller (Lachy) might send the Rickrollee an email like this:

Hi Paul,

It’s really important that you watch this video from human resources. Apparently some significant changes are taking place that could affect your division.

Click here.

Lachy

The Rickrollee (Paul) might logically think, “That sounds important” and click the link.

Rickrolling has extended beyond Web links to playing the video or song disruptively in other situations, including public places. The practice may have reached its Zenith when Astley and the song actually made a surprise appearance in the 2008 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, reaching tens of millions of viewers.

Fun times.

However, hold onto your sanity folks, because Rickrolling’s leading internet meme mantle could soon be usurped. Its evolution has taken the form of a practice called Shredding.

What is the Shredding internet meme?

This new twist in the popularity of internet trickery takes place when a creative digital native takes a popular song or video clip, usually a live performance, and through their own technical skill and musical finesse manages to remove any notable musical skill or technical finesse from the artists responsible for the ’shredded’ video clip.

The clip is then circulated without disclosing that the performance has been altered. In fact, the Shredder is more likely to make claims that might improve the percieved authenticity of the clip.

For example, the Shredder might send an email like this:

Hi Lachy,

I saw Kings of Leon last night and they were awful! I’ve never seen a band tank so badly! I needed earplugs.

Check out the clip.

Paul.

If done well, the Victim (Lachy) often then feels inclined to circulate the really embarrassing and, therefore, highly amusing performance. Of course, the other victims are the artists themselves.

However, the following clip has been so well shredded, described as ‘Kings of Leon have a disaster of a gig at Reading Festival 2009′, that it is hard to imagine that Kings of Leon frontman Caleb wouldn’t have choked back a laugh or two on seeing its artfully-crafted awefulness.

What next? I’m looking forward to a Shredded Rickroll (perhaps with a dollop of keyboard cats).

Come on, face it. Google controls your life. Oh, you don’t like how they launched Buzz? Well here’s the “official” Google response, courtesy of comedy.com. Step down.

Hat-tip: @LeelaCosgrove

Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way

— Frank Sinatra, My Way ♪

One of the very best pieces of advice for anyone just starting out is, “Life is too short for regrets.” The reason: regret tends to attach itself to the things we don’t do and later wish we had, rather than to the things we do then wish we hadn’t. This really boils down to one big life lesson: have a crack.

When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had pretty much decided to leave his lucrative job at a Wall Street firm to launch a website selling books online, his boss urged him to consider what he was risking. As Bezos describes in this superb interview excerpt, all he had to do was picture himself as an eighty-year-old man and the decision became extremely easy.

Essential viewing for all entrepreneurs and adventure seekers.