• Craigslist: This is the No. 1 thing I’d miss if I moved back home. Fast, easy, super simple online classifieds. In Australia, you have to turn to eBay or Trading Post, which aren’t nearly as quick and easy. There is a Sydney Craigslist category, but that’s as far as it goes – the beauty of Craigslist is in the refined localization.
• Threadless: Yes, almost my entire wardrobe is made up of Threadless shirts. Sure, you can get them shipped, but it takes forever and can be costly.
• Amazon: The entire online department store scene in Australia is horrible, bring Amazon in please.
• Google Voice: I could care less whether it’s from Google or not, but the GrandCentral/Google Voice model is a winner and should absolutely come down under.
• PhoneTag: Short of a full Google Voice style system, voicemail-to-text services are almost as awesome.
• Fandango: Online movie ticketing just makes sense. Buy online, pick up at the theatre with a swipe of your card.
• Public WiFi: It’s starting to pick up in Australia, but there is a heap of public WiFi in the States. Not all of it is free, but at least it’s there at a pinch if you need it.
• Hulu: I don’t use it all the time, but online video streaming is great. NetFlix to the Xbox 360 and other TV-connected gear is a great idea too, I just hate NetFlix’s implementation of it.
• Mint: This is by far the best way to manage your money. Awesome on every level, from the elegant and information-rich web interface, to the handy SMS notifications and savings tips via email.

And a few offline things that rock too:

• Unlimited bus transport for $1.50: Muni might be dirty, but the price rocks, especially with unlimited transfers for four hours.
• ZipCar: Car sharing is awesome. I hear that it’s just starting in Sydney, but it needs to be everywhere.
• At home snail mail postage: you can just leave letters in your letterbox, and the postman grabs them when he does his rounds
• Bikes on public transport: more a San Francisco thing than a general USA thing, but CityRail needs bike cars like Caltrain has.
• Bike lanes: San Francisco still doesn’t have enough, but it at least has some bike lanes. These are sorely missing in Australia, and really do encourage people to leave the car at home.

Obviously, this list isn’t exhaustive, but could someone please bring them to Australia? Thanks, I appreciate it…

This sounds simple enough, but what do the members of these social networks think of being advertised to though the links they click? I asked my Twitter followers whether they would unfollow someone monetizing their links through the service, and these are a small selection of the responses I received:

Navarr: @bck: I would unfollow them if they became spam. If they were relevant, and had context, and just fit in, then its all good. And as long as it wasn’t just outright spam. Ads are the driving force of the internet. I recognize this.

rgillettpr: @bck they would need to continue with links the way they were, not increase the noise just to get $$ for it

lindsayevans: @bck probably wouldn’t unfollow, but wouldn’t click on their links any more either

rgillettpr: @bck if i started seeing way more links from that person, and if they didn’t seem like links that person would usually send, would unfollow

shauntrennery: @bck A good idea would be if Google have some type of API that would allow ut.ag to search for ads relative to the tweet. That could work.

The two main concerns overall were that the user continues their current trend of link posting, and that the ads were context sensitive. No one raised the issue of people making money off another’s work, and instead focused on rewarding the user that posted the link for their work in finding it. This is somewhat the same as how ‘guides’ on Mahalo and other link aggregation kind of sites get paid – they didn’t make the content, but they add value to it by indexing it and revealing it to others.

Personally? I don’t expect to get rewarded for linking to other people’s content, since I don’t see that posting a link in my stream is adding enough value to justify that. As such, I can’t see myself using the service, but at the same time I wouldn’t not click a link that is shortened with uTag just because it is using uTag. What it will do is reduce the chances of me ‘blind clicking’ to links without a description – at the moment, I’ll click through to a link that someone posts just out of curiosity, but I wouldn’t do this if it was a uTag link without adequate description. I do believe that in their current form, the ads are slightly too intrusive, but at least there is a close button on them (though it can get hidden depending on the size of your browser window).

Overall, this system is exactly how About.com does things, though in most cases they are adding far more commentary to the links than can be had in the limited space that most social networks allow. I see the use in uTag as a monetizing service for bloggers more than through social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

I am writing this to let people that are thinking about going through the process for an E3 visa know that while there are a lot of forms to fill in, the process is overall very painless. The actual interview session, which is the part most people are most worried about, took no more than two minutes.

What follows are the tips and processes that I followed. This is by no means legal advise, but is what I did to successfully secure my working visa.

• Have your new employer complete a Labor Condition Application – this is key, and best to get done early on. An LCA certifies that your new job is a ’specialty occupation,’ and is a simple form for your employer to fill out. This will get approved within a couple of days
• Sign up for VisaPoint – this is the U.S. Embassy’s online visa system, and allows you to book your interview and fill out forms
• Fill out your forms – through VisaPoint, you can fill out your DS-156, which is the main application form. You must fill this out online, but since the system takes the information you put into VisaPoint it makes it easier anyway. If you are a male aged between 16 and 45, you must also fill out a DS-157, which is linked from within VisaPoint and asks a few questions about whether you have ever performed military service and the like. You can fill the DS-157 out by hand.
• Make your appointment – do it early. While I was able to get an appointment within a week, it can get busy. You do this through VisaPoint.
• Be prepared – this, in my opinion, is the most crucial step in the process. Before my interview, I went back and got references from many previous employers, recruiters, a University Academic Registrar, and even my high school computers teacher. The key is to show a high level of skill over a long period of time (which was not the 15 years the embassy recommended, though). If you have your University degree, get your transcript. Collect as much information as you can, put it in a folder with your visa, DS-156, DS-157, and LCA ready for the day. You will also need a self addressed Express Post Platinum satchel, and will have to pay your application fee at the Post Office (ask at the counter for the Non-Immigrant Visa Application Fee, $180 at the time of writing). Make sure you bring the envelope and receipt for the payment on the day.
• On the day – first and foremost, wear a suit. A lot of people don’t, but it makes you look and feel far more legitimate and professional if you do. These people must judge your character in a very short period of time, so anything you can do to make yourself look trustworthy is helpful. On the day, the process is:
  • Check in with security, have your visa ready for this
  • Queue and wait to be called for the person that checks your forms. This is not the interview, but instead just an officer that makes sure you’ve brought everything
  • If you have everything, you will be put into another queue to wait to be called to the special elevator, which will take you to another security checkpoint, followed by another waiting room.
  • After waiting in this new waiting room, you will be called to hand in your forms and passport, then (wait for it) – be asked to go back and wait to be called again.
  • You will be called back again – and this is the actual interview. You will be asked about your academic and employment background, and also about your ties to Australia (this is a non-Immigrant visa, after all). To satisfy the ‘ties’ requirement, you need only to have family left over here. The academic and employment part is completely up to the interviewing officer – in my case, he trusted that I was suitably qualified just on my word (this is where the suit comes in handy) and did not even look at my references. Despite this, I would never try it without having lots of documentation.
  • Head home, and wait for your passport to be delivered back to you in your Express Post satchel with a shiny new U.S visa inside

The whole process of going to the embassy took around three hours, but 99% of this is waiting in queues. Do not be discouraged by the information from the embassy – when it comes down to it, the only requirements are a DS-156, DS-157, LCA, Express Post satchel, receipt for the application fee, and your Australian passport. The rest is just proving you’re worthy, and the really key things are: get as much documentation on your work and academic history as possible, be organized and keep everything together for the day, and on the day dress professionally.

If anyone looking to get an E3 would like to discuss the process further, I’d be happy to help. Leave a comment or get me on the contact page.

Once you have an MMS compatible handset, simply:

1. Log in to Brightkite and select Account settings from the left of the screen
2. Click the Mobile tab
3. Scroll to the bottom and find your unique account email address, program this into your phone or remember it
4. On your mobile phone, create a new MMS message
5. In the To field, instead of putting in a phone number, put your Brightkite email address
6. Put the standard SMS commands into the body of the message. These can be found in the Brightkite help, but the basic ones are:
   • @placemark or @full address to check-in
   • !message to post a message and attach it to your current location

Using this method also means you can post photos to Brightkite from your phone. To do so, just add the photo in the body of the MMS message, and the text you want to go with it in the Subject field.

Enjoy, and feel free to add me as a friend over on Brightkite.