Cloud computing has been a popular topic lately, including the discussion of various cloud computing solutions such as Amazon AWS, Google App Engine, and Salesforce.com. Many of the discussions revolve around the enterprise world, but few are talking about what this means for startups.

Chris Brogan has a great list of tips for expanding your business network over the coming year. In fact, many of his ideas are about what not to do, such as stop networking at clubs where it is loud and unproductive and limiting time answering the phone. Other ideas take more time and focus.

The Carsonified blog has a great post that details the process they took when asking for a donations. The end result is not only pretty form, it makes an direct and positive impact to the person giving the donation.

I have worked with quite a few startups, each of varying sizes. The thing that I’ve noticed consistently with each startup: they moved and adapted to change faster when they were smaller. While this is simple to understand, it tends to be forgotten as the startup grows their business.

One of the big decisions for any new startup is the selection of a development team. Whether you need just one developer or you need a complete team, there are five important things to consider first.

Nathan at Godbit has an interview with Markup Factory, a hosted CMS, which supports valid user generated HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Markup Factory offers a rich feature set including a blog, user database, email newsletter engine, podcasts, e-commerce, form builder, and online event registration. The article covers topics such as distributed teams, VC vs. bootstrapping, and the impact of their faith in their business. Here is a portion of the article:

Many startups immediately focus on obtaining large-scale investors. The focus is so intense, that many make the investors more important than the customers. Not only does this lead to a rocky start, but it can also lead to improper spending of the investment money obtained. My goal is to encourage entrepreneurs to bootstrap their business whenever possible, and utilize investors only when the time is right. Let’s dig deeper to find out how this can be done and if bootstrapping is a good fit for your startup.

Seth Godin has a great definition of business model. Seth’s definition is essential when you are launching a startup. If you haven’t filtered your startup through this definition of a business model, you probably aren’t ready to launch yet (unless you don’t care about generating revenue).

Read Seth’s definition of a business model and how a simple checklist can help you launch your startup with your business model in mind.

Are you launching a cause that will require volunteers? Whether you are launching a new church, para-church ministry, non-profit, or a PTA/school project, you’ll want to check out this FREE eBook on recruiting volunteers from Agile Ministry.

Twitter has been in the media recently. Not just the expected online and print sources, but often in local news segments. Local news anchors now use Twitter to talk about upcoming stories and breaking news. Find out what Twitter is and how it can help you launch your ideas faster.