Beyond that, you can go deeper into your expertise.  Learn how to effectively target your ad campaigns, reduce your CPCs for your online ads, or find free ways of advertising your site.  Measure what your users use most, build human-friendly URLs, write keyword rich content.  Start your Twitter campaign, Friendfeed account, and Facebook account — then, link them all.  Now, take all of the various ways I’ve just described, throw in all of the techniques I’m missing, mix and match, and, well, you’ve got innumerable ways to build traffic.

Please, please, just don’t use the automated email request for a link exchange with other sites as a way of building traffic.  Anyone that’s ever run a barely popular website has seen one of these things:

Hi

My name is NAME. I’ve just visited your website
enterventure.com and I was wondering if you’d be interested in
exchanging links with my website. I can offer you a HOME PAGE link back
from my Business and Marketing website which is WEBSITE URL HERE
with page rank #.

As mentioned, your link would be placed on the site HOME PAGE, not on
any “links” pages which may be buried in the site somewhere. I’m sure
this exchange would be benefitial for both of our sites, helping
towards increasing our visibility in search engines.

If you are interested, please add the following information to your
website and kindly let me know when it’s ready. I’ll do the same for
you in less than 24 hours, otherwise you can delete my link from your
site.

I’ve only recently begun receiving these emails at EnterVenture.com, but I’ve seen an almost bi-weekly message like this one while working at Wikinvest.  (Remember what that feedback email breakdown looked like.)  Quite honestly, I don’t know for sure that these messages don’t work (some people must buy into them or else they’d have died out by now); however, I’m fairly certain that any site worth it’s page rank isn’t going to respond to this message.  More importantly, if you’re relying on this stategy, or are relying on a “web consultant” employing this strategy, it’s very clear you’re fishing for an easy path to success where one simply doesn’t exist.  By virtue of using this strategy, you’ve already predicted your site’s future demise. 

There’s only one free lunch you’ll find at a startup — the one given to employees to keep them in the office working longer.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m obsessed with finding ways to work faster and smarter.  I’ve talked about designing and brainstorming faster with my whiteboard and Balsamiq‘s mock up tool.  I spent over 600 words describing how I organize my email inbox, and I can’t wait for Ativiti to launch so I can share even more ideas about process.

Given all that, it’s no wonder I enjoy working for a startup.  From my experience, it’s the ultimate test in your ability to get a lot done in very little time.  There are always a million things you have to do.  There’s absolutely no way you can accomplish everything.  How do you figure out what gets done and what doesn’t?  When no one is telling you what to do, what’s the most important thing you should be doing?

From my experience with this and previous jobs, there’s the things you have to get done, no matter what, and then there’s everything else.

Things that have to get done, no matter what.

In most normal jobs, “the things that have to get done, no matter what” take up most of your time.  In a startup, though, these things are the least of your worries.  At a startup, the things that have to get done, no matter what, are the things that you’ve figured out already.  You know your payroll process.  You know your QA process.  Make them as fast as possible.  Make them take up 10% of your time.  You have to spend the rest of your days figuring out your new marketing strategy, the next product launch, the bug fix, and …

Everything else.

If 90% of your time is spent on everything else, what does that time look like?  How do you figure out the next most important thing for you to work on?  Your work has to constantly move a process forward, a contract forward, a task forward, the company forward.

Are you creating something new?

Working at a startup means you have the potential to create something new just about every day.  You can’t actually create something every day, but that’s the potential.  It takes a lot of prep work to create something new, especially to do so correctly.  Creating requires a process — brainstorm, refine, plan, build, refine — and with each step you’ll have to ask yourself the same question, what’s the most important thing I should be doing?

Are you doing something that will bring attention to your organization?

No news is bad news for a startup.  Find a way to get people talking about you.  There’s many ways to bring attention to your organization — create something new, improve your page rank, generate buzz on the blogosphere.  If you’re doing this, you’re always doing something important.

Are you creating something that’s lasting and replicable?

You’re creating something new.  We’ve established that.  You’re also creating something that may have to last.  You need to assess whether what you’re creating is a one-time activity or not.  Pulling a report is never a one-time activity.  Writing a feedback email isn’t either.  Obviously, this has to be balanced with a startup’s short-term need for speed and agility, but a little planning up front helps ensure longer term success.

Are you improving an existing process?

You’re taking a process from the person who first created it.  The problem is, you’re not someone who just takes a process as-is.  You want to question and improve it.  With enough people thinking like this you can quickly go from a guy writing a payroll check to an electronic, efficient direct deposit payroll system.  Be sure the time spent fixing your process justifies the effort, though.  If it takes several hours to reduce a back office process from three clicks to two, it might not be worth undertaking right now.  It might still be worth fixing, but not until a million other things are taken care of.

Are you developing something you can pass to another team?

You not only have to create things that can be passed to your own internal teams, you may need to make your work presentable to another team in your company or another company altogether.   You can’t simply give the administrative assistant a payroll task without re-explaining your process, highlighting any exceptions.  Your specification has to be written unambiguously in order for development to pick up where you leave off. What’s acceptable for internal team distribution often requires a new draft entirely for other teams.  Factor this extra effort into your planning.

Are you learning something new, something that you can re-use?

You know what you’re doing right now.  But do you know what you’re doing a year from now?  You should have an idea.  What will you need to know then that you don’t know now?  A few pilot programs now will make it easier for you to answer that question later.

Are you fixing something that’s broken?

Fixing something that’s broken helps make sure you’re not wasting time on things that don’t fit these criteria.  Remember what I said above, though, the effort mustn’t exceed the reward.

Finally, in this economy, there’s the most obvious question you should be asking yourself whenever you prioritize your work –

Is this going to make us any money?

Forget everything else.  If all else fails, focus on generating revenue.  In this economy, there’s nothing more important that you could be doing right now.

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So I was talking to my mother yesterday and…  (No, not that personal.)

Rather, this blog has been desperately lacking in the About page department since its inception.  Only recently did I even have an About page (which was an obvious mistake).  When I reworked the Enter Venture theme, one of the last things I did was to write the About page — it’s no easy task putting your life down into a few paragraphs.  In fact, it’s something I’ve tweaked up until the writing of this post.   So that begs the question, what do you think?

I’m Patrick Cushing, the lead (read: only) editor for Enter Venture.  I’m originally from Boston but now hang my hat in San Francisco because I’ve realized its much nicer to be able to visit the cold / snow rather than live in the cold / snow.

For an overly costly education (read: I’m still paying for it), I went to Columbia’s Engineering school and picked out the most interesting major I could find in Biomedical Imaging Engineering.  It was certainly interesting — how could brain images not be?  Four years later though, I realized I had little interest in things bio or medical and asked my then employer, D. E. Shaw, to send me to India to work with their software office.

In India, I began my education in all things web as a member of their Creative Services team. It was here that I found CSS / HTML to be much more enjoyable than brain image smoothing algorithms in Matlab.  I came to manage all things wiki at the India office and developed an affinity for trying to organize chaos.

After India, I sought something entirely different and found it with NYC Government as part of their Strategic Operations team working on their NYC Business Express project.  Working for NYC Government made me appreciate what it takes to build software in the enterprise — especially one where green screens still exist.  It was also the first time I felt like an adult, but I suspect wearing a suit every day will do that to anyone.

I’m currently working for Wikinvest on their Product and Marketing team where my days include everything from reaching out to bloggers, testing new products, writing & editing content, writing scripts to parse XML files, and helping to expand coverage internationally.

Making a movie is an extremely risky affair.  What better way to combat those risks than by measuring a movie’s financial success by crowd-sourcing it from both angles — investment and creation.

ZDONK will start out with a collection of existing Hollywood scripts that have yet to make it to the big screen.  If you’re to believe Entourage, that means there are a lot of great, hidden scripts simply sitting in studio drawers, waiting to be made.  ZDONK wants to let you, the users and investors, weed through that pile and determine which of them are fit to be the next blockbuster hit.

Want to own a part of a movie and invest in hits?  You’ll be able to invest in movies much like you can invest in shares of a company.  Want to be sure a particular movie makes it to the big screen?  Be a part of a group of investors that invest enough money to be sure it happens.  Want to turn your idea into a movie?  Start writing a script and have it ready for this spring, and, if enough investors believe in it, watch your idea become a reality.

The ZDONK founders

I’ve been following ZDONK and their founders since the idea was a mere glimmer in their collective eyes.  Before leaving New York this past September, Zack and Dennis — two of the company’s three founders — sat with me for lunch to share their experience building a company and navigating both the financial and film worlds.

Dennis is a former Bank of New York analyst who’s handling the financial side of the business, setting up the market for their scripts, and providing energy enough for the entire team.  Zack, a child of the Hollywood scene, has been helping the company make connections, find scripts, and create partnerships.  Roy, the third founder, is focused on project management and works with the company’s two other team members, their engineer and graphic designer.

Right now, the team of five is working to set up the core infrastructure for the site, making partnerships, and creating an online presence with their blog.  At the time that we spoke, they were learning to brand their idea and went through several logo iterations.  Since speaking with them, it looks like they’ve started to hit their stride with a collection of fun and informative blogs posts and a great tag line — Hollywood’s not just for asses anymore.

In December, they were in the process of raising funding to both build the site and start acquiring scripts, and they’ve since successfully raised a $1 million first round of funding.  Their next task, assembling their board of directors, also looks to be moving along with top-level experience from Fox, Walt Disney and Revolution Studios.

Image via Wikipedia

Since they’re essentially creating a stock market for scripts, a lot of their costs are spent on legal fees. Their business type — a market for movies — carries with it unique complications and intellectual property issues.

What they’re up against

Movies compete against a host of other media for our attention.  Once created, they’re likely to be pirated everywhere from college student dorms in Boston to marketplaces in Bangalore.  The financial crisis certainly hasn’t helped the industry’s outlook.

Heck, even ZDONK acknowledges what they’re up against in this environment — just check out recent ZDONK blog posts on startups in a crappy economy and the film industry during the financial crisis.

One of the ways they’re trying to combat this is by focusing on what can make money with less risk — comedies. (With a name like ZDONK, what else would they be focused on?) Comedies can be created on lower budgets and have the potential to earn significant long term revenue after distribution.  Also, during these hard times, board member Joe Roth points out, “It’s already bad enough, movie-goers need an escape.”

As things seem to be moving along, it seems now that one of their biggest challenges is powering through the low points and building a community to get behind them.  Working with the film industry requires a lot of connections, and at this point, their idea has been picked at from every angle.  Just ask Chris Albrecht of NewTeeVee, who takes a look at the hard economics of actually funding a movie online — 6,000 investors with $500 each.

At the end of the day, creating a website that could potentially help create movies is a great thing to be able to call “work”, the ZDONK’s founders told me.  This is the movie business, after all.  Everyone has a chance to become the next big blockbuster.

Update (1/4/2009): Since it had been awhile between when I met with ZDONK and when this post went live, it appears some of the post requires clarification.  I asked Dennis if I could re-post his response because it’s a much better representation of the company than I could make alone:

“create a market for new comedy movie scripts – For the most part, we will be working with agencies, development executives and riding the traditional industry channels to acquire properties (eg – talking with people who already have some level of vetting). We definitely plan on engaging writers on the site, but we’ll be doing that more through having “log-line” competitions where the winners develop comedy shorts to be distributed on zdonk.com and then syndicated across the web. Ideally, if a writer was very good, we’d eventually want them to write features for us but we are not comfortable rolling that out just yet.

We will definitely be encouraging writers to use their profile on our site to post their feature films and potentially receive feedback or find representation, but we will make it clear that we will not be scouring the web looking for feature scripts (too many IP issues). That is not to say, however, that a producer wouldn’t see a script they really liked on our site and pick it up and finance it themselves.

- Their next task, assembling their board of directors, also looks to be moving along with top-level experience from Fox, Walt Disney and Revolution Studios This was no biggy but we’ve had our Board of 5 people set for a while now. Lastly (and also unimportant), we raised about $1.4m and are done for now…raising money became too “expensive”.”

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Recently, Boris over at TheNextWeb.com wrote a bit about the things he hates about the web. After reviewing the new group socializing startup, MIXTT, recently, I was thinking about one of my favorite things about the web. It’s those rare moments, when ideas, computer code, and virtual screens somehow turn into fresh air and real conversation. I love when the web helps me get outside and talk to real people.

These days, no matter what your profession, it’s hard to avoid constantly being on the web. You write emails, text messages, and 140 character status updates. You talk to people on Skype, your cell phone, and your iPhone (which isn’t really a phone — especially given it’s lackluster reception). You have all of these ways of trying to recreate real, flesh and blood conversation. Every once in awhile, why not use some of the web’s tools as a way to experience the real thing? Go meet some real people. Go visit some real places.

Go to an event

Back in the days before the web, finding out about an event was a bit of a crap shoot. You might see a flyer for the event somewhere or an ad in a magazine or newspaper. With the web, you can find just about any type of event you can imagine. You can find business and tech events on sites like Garysguide or get a list of events by your location with Eventful. You can even find tickets to professional events (i.e., you have an overpriced ticket with a bar code) resold for extra high prices on StubHub, Ebay, or craigslist.

Create your own event

Services like MeetUp and MIXTT help you form both online and real life groups to help both your business and social life. You can create an ad hoc gathering focused on learning something new with a BarCamp event. If that doesn’t work, there are all kinds of other “unconferences” you can create — you can even create your own overpriced tickets with tools like EventBrite.

Find a date

It’s hard to watch TV these days without seeing the dueling ads between Match.com and eHarmony. Real people are using these services, and you can use not-so-real compatibility tests to find them. If that doesn’t work for you, try finding dates based on religion with sites like JDate, MuslimFriends, or, Christian Cafe.

Go to china (or somewhere similar)

Ernst-Jan of TheNextWeb.com has recently been traveled around China for with other bloggers. What a great idea! You can find great travel deals on sites like Kayak, Orbitz, or Travelocity. Read about about whatever the places you choose to visit with Lonely Planet (or get paid to write about them) or crash on a couch with CouchSurfer.

Go outside

When all else fails, fire up one of your favorite directions services and walk or drive to somewhere new. You can look up a nice park using one of your local park websites, or find a team to play sports using site’s like New York’s ZogSports.

The goal with these update posts is to capture the evolutionary entrepreneurial process.  Enter Venture is about learning to become an entrepreneur, which, as I’ve imagined it, means learning how to do a little bit of just about everything.  It’s a whiteboard for trying out new ideas and new experiences — whether those include attending events, interviewing other entrepreneurs, learning new things, or making your own mistakes.

In this vein, I’ve been working a bit on an update to the Enter Venture theme that will give the site its first real large scale update since its inception.  Over the past few months, I’ve made a few token changes to the site — a picture here, a  widget there.  I ended my affair with my tiny green RSS button — it just wasn’t a good usability choice.  After the Crazy Egg post, it’s relative invisibility was hard for me to ignore.  The honkin’ large, orange RSS button that Neil Patel let me steal from the old QuickSprout theme does a much better job of attracting user attention.  (Neil also happens to be the founder of Crazy Egg — go figure.  Thanks Neil!)

I’ve unfortunately not been the heaviest commenter on other blogs, which is a shame.  Before my move, I had begun to get a taste for what it really means to “develop relationships in the blogosphere”.  I’ve found other ways to make use of social networking services to grow Enter Venture, but nothing quite as lasting or reciprocating.  This is something I need to address.

I’ve taken a Jules Verne-like tour around the world of web startup blogs in search of a better picture of the global startup scene.  It’s not over yet, but so far I’ve covered:

• Asia
• Middle East
• Europe
• Australia
• Africa

As part of that series, I was fortunate enough to have a few of the blogs in the international startup series invite me to guest post on their sites.  Check out StartupsNigeria and TheNextWeb.com for the same great Enter Venture content on whole new sites.  After that, check out the rest of these sites as they’re both excellent.

If you’re really watchful (and read to the end of my posts) you’ll notice that advertising’s been added to the site.  This has been a simple test to judge Google’s topic match and fit with Enter Venture, rather than a sincere effort to make money.  Though, that said, some kind soul was dear enough to click on the links a few times so I’ve earned enough to purchase an iTunes song or two.  In the future, expect to see more advertising on Enter Venture.  For one, I don’t think you can really claim to understand the internet if you’ve never worked with online advertising.  For two, I’ve started to change the way I feel about advertising while working at my current job.  Nothing is really free, no matter how much we’d like to think so and certainly not in this economic climate.

Two of my Blue Venture Community (formely known as Columbia Venture Community) colleagues — Ari Greenberg of Baveo and Dave Whittemore of Ativiti — were featured in Enter Venture’s early entrepreneur / startup posts.   Enter Venture’s 10 startup job websites post blew up and alone accounts for 35% of this blog’s traffic.  And last, but not least, Enter Venture crossed the 50th post mark recently!

The idea behind Ativiti is to identify and then expose all of the steps required to do pretty much anything. What are the five steps that you must take to learn the guitar? The hundred you must take to start a business? The experts out there have already figured out these steps and simply need a way to capture and ‘widgetize’ these steps into someone else’s project plan. Ativiti makes it reproducible — viral, even.

For anyone out there that learns through practice problems and example code, Ativiti is for you. Rather than just describe how to do something, you want to see the steps. Get rid of the project friction and those moments where you state “wouldn’t it be great to”… Instead of “wouldn’t it be great”, Ativiti plans to offer, “this is how you can”. Sign up for the beta now.

A few months back, I had the chance to sit and chat with one of Ativiti’s co-founders, Dave Whittemore. Dave is also a product manager at On Deck Capital, a financial services startup that provides small business loans, and an assistant organizer for the Blue Venture Community (formerly the Columbia Venture Community).

Dave talked a bit about some of the challenges of starting a business. Ativiti is being created by a team of moonlighters who find time to work on it outside of their day jobs on nights and weekends. This schedule makes getting their project off the ground that much more difficult, as it’s no easy task getting your idea vetted when you can only talk about it at night.

What the Ativiti team does have to their favor is familiarity. The Ativiti team has now worked together, in some form, for several projects dating back to Varsity Flicks and their Facebook application, MyOffice / Study Groups. Dave has settled into his role of working on marketing, blogging, and strategy with a product manager focus. Larry has been the developer throughout. Brandon takes care of external partnerships and analysis, and their newest team member, Nick, takes care of design. They’ve worked together for a while and know what to expect from each other. They’ve survived life shifts and now want to get something off the ground and popular.

Right now, the team is wholly focused on the product by taking a few mock ups and moving towards a working, private demo product. They’re using the blog to define their problem (and even list out their competitors) and following their three core principles:

1. Templating helps solve the problem of how to do something
2. I/O everywhere — meaning, tools need to move with you
3. Don’t reinvent the social network wheel

After that, they want to get their product out to the public and see what works and doesn’t. Only after this proof of concept stage, do they think they’ll focus on the business model with premium account.

Dave’s advice for any other moonlighting entrepreneurs out there — keep plugging away with consistency. Throughout the financial crisis (and as a New York-based team, this has been even more of a distraction), the team has continued to meet. Creating something new requires an evolutionary approach. At times, moonlighting helps — your day job influences your night job. Your night job influences your day job. It’s incredibly important to learn from both sides.

From where I stand in the U.S., I must admit I rarely hear about African startups. From the looks of things, that is / will be changing soon!  Check out some of these great sites:

Startup Africa

Startup Africa covers the African technology and startup scene, with a particular focus on startup events. From a glance at the tag cloud, Ismail Dorat’s blog tends to focus largely on events and startups coming out of South Africa. If you’re ever doing an Enter Venture-like startup review, the site’s sidebar is extremely useful with a breakdown of startup news by African countries — there aren’t too many posts outside of South Africa, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

StartupsNigeria

Loy Okezie’s blog reviews web startups and web trends specific to Nigeria.  This includes everything from Google maps’ Nigeria coverage to Nigerian entrepreneur interviews, Nigerian startup reviews, and even an assessment of the Nigerian VC environment. If you’re looking to brush up on Nigerian web trends, this is the place.

Appfrica

Appfrica is an African developer / entrepreneur’s heaven. The blog covers a wide breadth of African IT news and culture topics. Their Afridex is a Crunchbase-like African startup index. They feature African tech interviews. Web trends. Mobile trends. Conference coverage. A forum. A wiki. Mix in a great, clean design and this site is nearly homepage worthy.

Bandwidth Blog

Bandwidth blog is the South African and global internet startup news blog, which means, they cover just about everything and some of their posts happen to be about South Africa. You’re just as likely to find a critique of FriendFeed as you are the latest news about Afrigator. They also have one of the coolest sections on any blog that I’ve seen with their series of office photos from startups all over South Africa..

TechMASAI

TechMASAI looks like the most low tech of the African startup blogs with a basic, hosted WordPress theme, but what it lacks in design aesthetic, it makes up for in a devotion to startup profiles. TechMASAI has the most singular focus on startup reviews with roughly 4 of 5 posts focused on profiling new startups.

Also worth checking out are ITNewsAfrica, Startup Kenya, and Timbuktu Chronicles.

Now, it’s time to double back to Australia. It breaks up the westward path we were charting, but for some reason, with Australia, that feels fitting.

TechNation Australia

TechNation Australia is something. They cover everything related to startups in Australia from interviews, events, new startups, top Australian sites by traffic, etc. “If it’s to do with technology and Australia then we’re on it.” What’s more amazing, the site’s ostensibly a labor of love by a group of dedicated contributors — there’s no advertising to be found. (Which, also, partly explains a design that is far surpassed by its content.)

VS Consulting Group

Vishal Sharma’s startup blog is an excellent place to start any review of the Australian tech scene. The site features Australian startup reviews, trends, and interviews with Aussie entrepreneurs. The blog has been a bit quiet as of late, but it’s well built for longer lasting content. There’s a comprehensive list of Australian startups, Australian research and analysis, and interviews accessible from the header.

Tech Events

Tech Events is a user generated Australian tech events site. It’s not a calendar service — nor is it meant to be. It’s a group of people interested in sharing technology events in and around Melbourne with new events posted in a blog-like format.

Phil Morle’s Technology for Humans

Phil Morle’s Technology for Humans is just a damn, great blog. Phil covers Australian startups and tech, but what’s really great about his blog are his usability insights and future of the web discussions. A few of my favorites are Web App Goal #2: Don’t Try to Change the World and Can Everyone in Your Startup Answer These Questions?

ITnews Australia

ITnews Australia covers both Australian and global IT news. There’s more of a focus on enterprise companies and gadgets.

Builder AU

Builder AU is a great resource by developers, for developers — regardless of whether they come from Australia or not. A series of blogs cover everything from Python tips to Design Principles, with a bit of Australian startup news mixed in.

Also worth checking out are BlogPond with its list of the 100 top Australian blogs as well as Scott Middleton‘s blog.

MIXTT, a recent TechCrunch50 startup, doesn’t think so. Outside of work and school, the way you really meet people is via your friends. Why not create a social network around that fits that model for social interaction? Eve Peters and her team have done just that. MIXTT is the social network for groups to meet other groups.

It’s a lot like MeetUp, but with a focus on groups meeting groups for fun, socializing, partying, and if you’re lucky, dating. What better way to use the web than to help you get off the web, get out, and meet people. In fact, “MIXTT is pretty much a guaranteed good time.”

When you join MIXTT, you’re immediately directed to create a group. (You might have your own profile, but the focus here is on the groups.) Next, fill out your group with a few friends or browse other groups. You can look up people’s social calendars, where they’re going to be, etc. When you zero in on a group that looks like a good time, well, go meet them. Better yet, bring a posse of your own and see what happens (a Beat It-like re-enactment, maybe?).

The MIXTT site is certainly designed for a good time, but there may be a few kinks in their plan. Like I said at the beginning, no one wants to be the first person of their friends to join a social network where all they’re doing is talking to themselves. A Facebook application would certainly help that. I also wonder how often I would actually update an online social calendar, but maybe future versions of the application could make use of email or Twitter-like updates.

Ultimately, you’ll get out of MIXTT what you put into it. It sure looks like fun — the site has a cool design, the pictures are full of party scenes. I just moved to San Francisco and could use a new social outlet. Their blogs (MIXTT blog and Check Please) are great, and, well, who doesn’t want to see a women-lead startup succeed?

Scripped follows the ‘give away your core product for free and make money on the side’ model. Their core product, their script writer, is free. They also offer script storage services for a $5 fee, editing for $100+, and script marketing and contest submission services. The support services are partly thanks to partnerships with Coverage, Ink and WordHustler.

Their editor is simple but gets the job done. User’s can write scripts directly into a format that’s production ready with the proper indentation, font sizing, and page layouts. If you’re not happy with a draft, create a new one under the same project. When you’re finished, export to PDF for wider distribution or take advantage of their partnership with WordHustler to submit your content to publishers and contests. The various features support the beginning of the content creation process through the writer’s (hopeful) pay-out

The site’s design is evocative of a bygone, pre-computer era. The editor’s font looks like it’s straight off the typewriter. Coupled with black and white cartoons throughout the site, it’s just the sort of hip throwback that should do well attracting young, wordy users.

If there’s something Scripped could improve on, it’s the organization and coordination between some of it’s various parts. The Creative Support section isn’t quite as easy to access as some of the other features, but it could be really useful — especially for the company’s bottom line at $129 per script. A better marketplace-like view into available projects would be nice too, and the site sometimes feels too much like a blog than the writing portal their products seem to suggest.

Interaction will continue to be a challenge, but judging by the list of future features in their Pipeline, Scripped is intent on building a user community that will support the next generation of screenwriters.

Again, if you know of any other startup sites that I’m missing (especially non-English sites), let me know in the comments.

Europe

Arctic Startup

Arctic Startup reviews internet and mobile startups from Nordic and Baltic countries, and they’re one of my favorites on this list. The site has a great, cool blue design that is unique but still evocative of TechCrunch. I appreciate the honest way they present new startups, with a description of both the strengths AND the weaknesses of the company / application.

The Next Web

The Next Web covers anything and everything related to the future of the web, no matter where it comes from. That said, the team is largely European (largely Dutch) so their coverage gives generous play to European startups. Posts run the gamut from startup reviews, reactions, and general industry news including a recent reaction to Jason Calacanis, a Romanian music site review, the Pope on Twitter, and some great advice for entrepreneurs in this economy.

alarm:clock euro

alarm:clock euro, like it’s American counterpart alarm:clock, reports on the comings and goings of VC money in Europe with a focus on funding rounds and buy outs. Each post comes with a description of the startup, the amount they’ve been funded for, and (the interesting part) a few thoughts about why they think the investment is a good or bad one.

TechCrunch UK

TechCrunch UK is TechCrunch for startups in the UK . (I’m assuming people know what TechCrunch is.) Amazingly, it appears as if its entirely written by one guy, Mike Butcher. Here’s hoping he gets that star intern he’s looking for.

TechCrunch France

TechCrunch France covers the French startups scene as well as translates and re-posts a portion of TechCrunch’s original posts.

Startup 2.0

Startup 2.0 is a pan-European startup contest that took place last May (and presumably, will be held again). Voting takes place online for a chance to win ad space in TechCrunch, a Microsoft software pack, and Sun hardware. Personally, I would have expected a better prize than with something closer to what VenCorps offers.

Altaide Valley

Altaide Valley is another blog focusing on the connections between France and Silicon Valley. The blog is owned and operated by Altaide, a French strategic technology firm.

TigerPrises

Toivo Tanavsuu’s TigerPrises covers Estonian startups and general technology trends in the Baltics, particularly mobile. Toivo also writes for Arctic Startup.

Startupbin

Startupbin covers web startups in Finland. Timo Paloheimo is another blogger from Arctic Startup, and he’s also created Google minus Google — a Google search site without Google sites in the results.

Other European startup sites worth noting are SwissStartups.com and SomBiz (a Finnish, invitation-only Web 2.0 entrepreneur network).

StartUpArabia

StartUpArabia is another one of the blogs that made me want to write this international startup series. Mohamed Marwen Meddah’s site covers new Arab technology startups as well as general market news and information. The site covers startups all over the arab world, with recent posts covering sites or news everywhere from Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, and Lebanon. You can also find events (largely in Dubai) and a job board on Startup Arabia.

StartupIsrael

StartupIsrael’s design has a bit of a web 1.0 feel to it, but it seems to be largely a web 2.0 powered site. The site has an active events list, informative book list, and the authors re-post links to Israel startup news (in English) from Hebrew news sites. They also aggregate a few popular U.S. sites in one of their sections.

ArabCrunch

ArabCrunch and StartupArabia seem to overlap a lot in their coverage, and I suspect the two sites will compete for quite some time as they both have very high quality sites and articles. ArabCrunch does seem to do a better job of posting general industry news. From the looks of their tag cloud, the site stresses heavily on Jordanian news and startups.

Israel Startup News

Israel Startup News covers a variety of startups — not just web-based startups. This site really demonstrates the diversity of startups coming out of Israel with energy, medical, and web startups featured on the site. Dani Dechter’s done a great job pulling all of these different early company stories together.

TechWadi

TechWadi is a networking association for Arab Technology professionals in Silicon Valley and around the world. They host a series of events, largely in Silicon Valley.

Green & White

This Pakistan-focused site covers startups, business models, new media marketing, and usability — great! The site leans towards being more professional-focused with sections on IT, HR, Marketing, etc. They’ve also got a great, active side bar worth checking out.

VC Cafe

VC Cafe covers Israeli startups from abroad — originally from Silicon Valley, now from London. The site tends to feature funding rounds for Israeli startups, but there’s also general startup news and industry news as well. It may be last on this list, but don’t let that fool you. Count me in as a new subscriber.

Also worth checking out, TheWebsessed.

Baveo allows users to post photos, videos, and text updates to a blog devoted entirely to the newest members of the family. The site is well designed for parents and family on the go. Parents can post directly to their Baveo blog via their site or their phones, and friends and family can stay updated via email or text messages.

I recently had the chance to chat with Ari Greenberg, Baveo’s CEO and founder. Ari helped break down where the idea for Baveo came from, how the team came to be, what they’re up to, and a few other thoughts about being an early entrepreneur.

After witnessing a childhood friend and his wife blog about the birth of their first child, Ari’s idea for Baveo was born. Ari saw the chance to make a wonderful and important experience even better. Expecting parents deserved a better and more integrated blogging experience.

Previously at Magnify.net, Ari spent his free time exploring the project further. He had always known he wanted to start his company, but he lacked an idea worth pursuing.

Baveo quickly became that idea, and when he realized it, Ari wasted no time building a team of three. Everyone works for equity, and Ari wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s how he knew the team believed in the idea and wanted to see it succeed. It also ensured the team would be honest with him and tell him when things weren’t going right. Both are equally important.

The site is currently invite-only so the team is working towards building out new features and publicizing the site. There’s a large community of mom and dad bloggers out there for them to tap into, and they’re exploring ways for users to better capture and share baby memories.

No matter what they think now, though, the team is focused on letting their users decide where Baveo goes next. “Everything needs to be about the user,” Ari says, “Users will tell you what they want if you listen.”

For all of you expecting parents out there, sign up for a Baveo invite now. Let your friends know what’s going on with your little cherub and let Baveo know what you think of their service. They’re listening.

On the startup end, I think the setting is a bit different. The startup industry is astoundingly global, which is just what the internet was designed to make possible. You don’t have to create your company in Silicon Valley anymore (thank god because the world can only handle so many social thing-a-ma-jiggies). What’s different with startups, however, is that the industry isn’t as globally aware of itself, or at least not obviously so. It’s global, but it’s hardly interdependent.

With that in mind, I’ve been on the look out for international startup sites. I’ve compiled what’s hardly a complete list (especially because its limited to English language sites), but it begins to shed light on the global startup scene. If I’ve left anything out, please let me know in the comments. First up, India and Eastern Asia:

India

Pluggd.In – Pluggd.In reminds me a lot of Silicon Alley Insider. It covers new startups, funding rounds, and general industry trends. Their team reflects their diversity and depth of coverage. They have an active user community, and my interactions with their Chief Blogger – Ashish Sinha – was largely what prompted me to write this post. You can also check out their newly launched (and better designed) Ecosystem, a directory of startups, VCs, incubators, etc.

Startups.In – Startups.In has been essential to this series and has helped me identify a few of the startups on this list. The site takes an Alltop.com-like approach with aggregated startup news from China, India, Kenya, and Korea (lucky me). It’s a great international resource, but after this International series by Enter Venture, they might need to update their list a bit.

Webyantra – Webyantra reads like a mix of Hacker News and TechCrunch. It has both startup news as well as random other tidbits they pluck from the founders’ other company, SlideShare. I get the impression Webyantra is one Indian startup feed you don’t want to go without.

DesiStartups – The startup for Indian startups is small but great. The blog covers several new Indian startups a month with an approach similar to Enter Venture. The site reviews early startups with a bit of constructive critiscm included. Most of their startups seem to be extremely early stage.

StartupDunia – StartupDunia does a great job covering the Indian startup scene, and surprisingly enough, it’s author isn’t even located in India! Pranav Dharma covers the Indian startup scene from Florida — go figure.

Business India 2.0 – Business India 2.0 focuses less on startups and more on the internet at large. Their most recent series of posts provides a great breakdown of the online advertising industry.

Also worth noting from India are YourStory, Thinking Aloud, MediaNama, Alootechie, Unwireindia, The Startup Guy, VC Circle, Trak.in’, WATBlog, TechPluto, and Venture Woods

Korea

TechnoKimchi – TechnoKimchi easily has the best name in this series. Taewoo Danny Kim writes an insightful blog about the human issues behind the web. Just check out his great About section or his analysis of the meaning of ‘social’ in Asia with this post. It’s about people and technology, not just people or technology.

Web 2.0 Asia - Chang-Won Kim’s Web 2.0 Asia covers the Korean IT / tech industry with everything from events (Chang helped found Open Web Asia), new applications, and industry news. Chang’s other project (read: company) was just acquired by Google. Now, if only I could read Korean, I could explain what his company, TCN, does.

Korea Crunch – It looks like Korea Crunch went on hiatus for awhile, but now it’s back. From the looks of the snapshot on their most recent post, the blog looks to have a bunch of startups ready for review over the coming months.

Hong Kong

852 Signal – An homage to 37signals? Or something else entirely? I’m not sure, but maybe the blog’s founder, Angus Lau, will visit Enter Venture and tell us where the name comes from. In the meantime, 852 signal covers the next generation of web products coming out of Hong Kong. The blog is a great resource for finding out about new Asian startups without a lot of the noise on other sites. The site has a great, clean design and covers Hong Kong events, startup news, and anything else in the Hong Kong web tech market.

China

China Web 2.0 Review – The site focuses on interviews, search engines, social networking, and other web trends in China. As someone with little Chinese web awareness, I particularly liked their recent post, TrendsSpotting Handbook of Online China, which features a great slide deck on web penetration in China.

China Tech News – China Tech News isn’t exclusive to startups, but it covers the greater Chinese tech industry. In fact, this site seems to largely cover multinational companies and joint ventures, but like I said, I’m largely unaware of the Chinese startup scene. This seems like a good starting point for assessing the industry at large.

techblog86 – techblog86 covers the intersection of China’s mobile, tech, and startup worlds. Compared to ChinaTechNews, it’s also a sight for sore eyes. Not only does the site make use of a clean design, but it’s a lot closer to what we’re looking for in this startup site review. At least recently, the blog tends to focus on mobile web issues.

Singapore

Young Upstarts – Young Upstarts is a business and technology blog about new ideas and entrepreneurship. The blog covers Singaporean startups and events, but it’s not exclusive to Singapore. One of their recent posts features IdeaBlob, a U.S. based startup.

Project Senso – Project Senso is the Singaporean entrepreneur and founders network. The site features a blog on its homepage but the main use of the site seems to be its message boards.

Singapore Entrepreneur 27 – Singapore Entrepreneur 27 runs several tech events in a manner similar to the original Entrepreneur 27. The organization looks to be run by a group of students and early entrepreneurs.

Japan

Asiajin – Asiajin covers the Asian web industry but tends to focus on Japan. The site’s design isn’t all that impressive, and I originally underestimated the quality of its content. They do seem to have tapped into the Japanese startup scene with posts on events and a variety of different types of Japanese startups, and they feature links to a bunch of other Asian startups in the right sidebar. Check it out.

Also, notable from the inside, looking in.

Taiwan

Web 2.0 Play – Web 2.0 Play covers mobile and web applications from Taiwan. The site seems to be updated a few times a month with interviews, event reviews, and general industry news. It doesn’t seem to cover newly launched startups.

That’s all for now in this startup site series. Stay tuned for future posts as I’ll cover startup sites from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and everywhere in between.