Over a million jobs and up to €240 billion in business could be lost in the European Union over the next five years as a result of illegal downloading, according to a new study into Internet piracy.

The study, by Paris-based TERA Consultants for the International Chamber of Commerce, focused on piracy in Europe's music, film, television and software industries.

Those industries generated €860 billion and employed 14.4 million people in 2008. But in the same year, €10 billion and 186,000 jobs were lost to piracy, the study found.

If that trend continues – and the rapid increase in illegal downloads and advancing piracy techniques suggest it will – then up to 1.2 million jobs and €240 billion worth of European commerce could be wiped out by 2015.

In a recent post for ReadWriteWeb, Tim Trefren, founder of Mixpanel analytics service, writes that focusing on pageviews is no longer an effective business strategy.

If your business sells a product online, there are other customer metrics that are vastly more valuable than mere number of visitors coming to your site.

Trefren advises paying more attention the following alternatives; these metrics should give you more useful information about your users' behavior, which you can use to develop strategies for improving your conversion rates.

The soaring popularity of smart phones has created a new type of entrepreneur - the "app developer".

Whether it is finding ladies' toilets on the London underground, identifying bird songs, forecasting snow conditions at ski resorts or just buying stuff online, somebody, somewhere has come up with a clever little computer program that lets you do the task from your handset.

The industry has grown up around the iPhone. More than 140,000 different iPhone applications have appeared since Apple opened its Apps Store on iTunes to outside developers in July 2008.

Although it is the dominant player, there are many more to choose from including those from BlackBerry, Microsoft, Google, Nokia, and Samsung.

I [Will Corrente] recently received an email from a young entrepreneur requesting the criteria I would use in selecting a business partner. How to choose the right business partner is not an uncommon concern among aspiring entrepreneurs and is definitely one that should be considered very carefully before moving forward. Your choice of business partner could be the difference between success and failure.

Selecting the right business partner is a two step process: 

• First, you the entrepreneur needs to complete a candid self-evaluation and skills inventory.  Based on the results, you will have a clear vision of your capabilities and shortfalls, which in turn will give you the selection criteria for the appropriate partner. 
• Second, you the entrepreneur will need to candidly evaluate your potential partner’s skills, capabilities and personality. Successful partner selection should be objectively based on the needs of the business and not on friendship, emotion, or exhaustion of the entrepreneur.  The most successful partnerships are found on synergies and skills that meet both the current and future demands of the business.

The best partner will have skills complementary to your own, not the same skills as you.  Several years ago a friend opened a deli and chose a close friend for his partner, both loved to cook and create in the kitchen.  But neither enjoyed the front of the house, customer service, marketing or staff management responsibilities necessary to the business’s successful operation.  They both quickly realized that the business did not need two chefs, no pun intended, and one of them would need to step beyond his comfort zone and take on a different role.  Neither was willing nor effective in these critical areas, and because finances were tight and someone could not be hired to assume these duties, the business soon closed.

SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley may be the cradle for tech start-ups, but some foreign-born executives, engineers and scientists are leaving because of better opportunities back home, strict immigration laws here and the dreary California economy with its high cost of living.

Software engineer Vinod Kumar is staying with EMC but moving to his homeland of India after a decade in the Valley. Eric Diep hasn't given up entirely on the Valley. But most employees at his social-gaming start-up, A Thinking Ape, are in another office in his native Canada.

The 2-year-old company is shifting people to Vancouver, where it says engineering talent is more affordable, the government is more supportive and work visas are less hassle.

The talent-exodus problems don't end there. Fewer foreign students are coming to the Valley to earn engineering and science degrees, according to the Silicon Valley Index, which takes the economic pulse of the Valley each year.

PiMobility, maker of the electric-hybrid bike called the PiCycle, is officially launching its newest creation at the DEMO conference in Palm Springs, Calif.: a two-wheel drive light electric motorcycle it calls the PiMoto. One of two green companies debuting at the event, PiMobility seeks to prove that greening transportation can be incredibly simple.

First, the stats. The PiMoto can reach speeds up to 30 miles per hour, and has a 25-mile range per charge, making it a suitable commuter vehicle for people who have always wanted to bike to work without showing up sweaty. After all, both modes of transport produce zero emissions. Though the PiMoto is a bit pricier, at $2,999 a pop.

The recently published InnovationTools 2010 Innovation Climate Survey contains some excellent insights and indicators that innovation is once again on the upswing – at least among a large chunk of respondents.

But it also underscores a persistent misunderstanding of what innovation really is and why it’s different from creativity, ideation, invention or product development. There’s also an over-emphasis on the front end of innovation – the ideation phase – when most breakthrough innovation typically occurs at the back-end – the commercialization phase – where invention becomes market disruption.

More investment in public-private partnerships and prioritizing key technologies are crucial if America is to avoid losing its competitive edge in manufacturing, industry and policy leaders warned Congress in recent testimony.

With a heavy focus on manufacturing innovation and government’s role in stimulating new technologies, experts from private, public and academic backgrounds said rival economies have already mobilized their resources in more efficient, targeted areas.

“In order to be relevant, we need to ensure that government R&D programs are focused on ways to provide high-quality assembly, non-destructive evaluation, and high rates of repeatability at large volumes,” said Susan Smyth, director of General Motors’ manufacturing systems research lab, in testimony to the House Committee on Science and Technology on March 17.

So what makes one a ’successful’ entrepreneur?

Let me start with a premise: Success is generally measured alongside monetary health of a venture. Rightly so coz numbers are the bloodline of any business. So let me define a ‘successful entrepreneur’ as the one who has a venture which has a sound monetary health.

Over the last few years, I too have been in pursuit of a ‘magic potion’ that makes the entrepreneurs all that we worship. When I read about entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and many who dropped-out of college, it appeared to be one of the magic mantra of becoming a success story. Drop out, start a venture, rule the world – in three simple steps.

But after a couple of years, I realized that the ploy is far more complicated. Local society has a bearing on one’s entrepreneurial life too and therefore, following the Indian success stories made more sense than following the western ones. I came across the Naukri.com story and Makemytrip.com – both the entrepreneurs did their MBAs from the best Management Institute in the country – worked in a corporate for few years and then did their start ups.

Today, I would like to discuss the education-related recommendations outlined at the Kauffman Foundation’s State of Entrepreneurship address. We have long been aware that American education is struggling to stay competitive. We also know that the development of entrepreneurial skills, such as opportunity recognition and prudent risk taking, are not prioritized in most U.S. educational institutions. Developing tomorrow’s talented, capable innovators is a challenge that will require entrepreneurially-driven improvements in education at all levels.

Programs that introduce students to the possibilities of business creation are few, but they have proven that they can open up new horizons for talented kids and unleash an entrepreneurial drive would otherwise lay dormant. The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, or NFTE, does great work in this area, primarily in urban cores. NFTE has been helping high school students from low-income communities improve their business, academic and life skills.Through entrepreneurship education and business competition programs, NFTE gives students opportunities to interact with seasoned entrepreneurs, inspiring them to channel their energy toward transforming their ideals into real-life ventures.

Back in October of 2009, Manor, Texas launched an initiative in collaboration with Stanford University’s Peace Dot project that positioned the entire city of 6500 residents as an open innovation platform. Called Manor Labs, the program seeks to turn the town into a real-world incubator for change, exploring the ways that emerging technologies can bring efficiencies to city agencies and raise overall quality of life for the residents. The idea is to eliminate the barriers associated with taking new processes from the concept stage and scaling them up to work within the framework existing institutions. The theory being that there is no virtual model that can replace the results gleaned from testing out feasibility in an actual setting.

To that end, Manor Labs is a truly global initiative that encourages proposals and from developers and thinkers from around the world who are interested in trailing their solutions for improving everything from public works and city development to mobile information technology. Manor’s CIO explains the solicitation process in the video below:

This weekend, the nation was transfixed by drama, as one side, then the other, seemed sure to win, and then finally a dramatic upset occurred. No, not health care, but the NCAA basketball tournament, where, for the first time ever, a No. 1 seed (Kansas) lost in the first round to Northern Iowa, on a three-point shot at the final buzzer. I am not a sports fan, but my boyfriend pointed out that the really interesting thing about the game was the name of the all-American lad from West High School in Iowa City who made the winning shot -- Ali Farokmanesh.

Ali's father, a former player for the Iranian Olympic volleyball team, came to America for an education and stayed here. Ali, says one of his teammates, is "one of the hardest workers I've ever met." He has never seen his grandparents, or Iranian aunts and uncles.

Elsewhere in the NCAA, St. Mary's, a small Catholic university, knocked out second-seed Villanova.  The big star? A 6' 11" garrulous, trash-talking, self-described "slow white guy" -- Omar Samhan.  Omar's father came here from Egypt, he grew up in California, and when it was time to go to college, his Muslim parents, who Omar describes as "pretty liberal," let him "go where I wanted and had the best chance to play."

This blog post kicks off a three part series on Start-up Success for Small Business Trends.  This first blog post is about a step in business planning that is often overlooked.  Part II, we’ll look at “Working from home?” and Part III will be about the “Top reasons why start-up businesses fail and what you can do about it.”

Many people dream about owning a small business. You may be one of those people who have had a “notion” for years that someday you would be president of a company, successful beyond your wildest dreams. Turning that dream into reality is an evolutionary process. It involves not only having a solid business idea but also knowing the “business of running a business.” You will need to get your arms around stuff like accounting, marketing, and operations, but before you dive into crunching numbers for your business plan, consider this:

It is my strong belief that would-be entrepreneurs need to develop a life plan before they ever write a business plan. Why, you ask?

Ending months of speculation, Google on Monday stopped censoring search results in China.

The company has done so by redirecting searchers who arrive at Google.cn, its search site in China, to Google.com.hk, which relies on servers based in Hong Kong.

Most entrepreneurs dream of being able to raise Venture Capital financing (VC financing). It has become a measure of a business’s potential for growth and success. To some, getting tapped for VC financing is like winning the lottery. In its most basic form, VC financing is an investment of capital (typically cash) in an early-stage business with significant growth potential. In other words, VCs place bets on companies that they believe will generate big returns in the future, either when sold to another company or when they are catapulted into the stock market by way of an initial public offering (IPO).

However, the bitter reality is that VC financing is as alluring as it is unattainable for 99.99% of small businesses. According to a study conducted by the National Venture Capital Association and Price Waterhouse Coopers, venture capitalists invested $17.7 billion in 2,795 deals in 2009. So out of 23 million businesses in the United States, 0.01% received VC financing in 2009. Granted these numbers don’t necessarily include all of the businesses that have received VC financing in the past.  But, the fact remains, the lion’s share of entrepreneurs will never be in a position to secure venture capital investments.

Bill Gates is going atomic. The Microsoft founder's startup TerraPower is partnering with Toshiba to build a traveling-wave reactor. These reactors run on depleted uranium, rather than the enriched sort found in light-water reactors, only have to be refueled every 60 to 100 years, and are small enough to fit in a hot tub. it is all part of Gates' quest for zero carbon emissions in the next 40 years.

The VSS Enterprise was unveiled last December, and today flew for the first time out of Mojave Spaceport in California, as captured in the image above. "VSS Enterprise remained attached to its unique WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, VMS Eve, for the duration of the 2 hours 54 minutes flight, achieving an altitude of 45,000ft (13716 metres)." Both crafts are developed for Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic by Burt Rutan and team at Mojave-based Scaled Composites.

The VSS Enterprise test flights will continue through 2011, progressing from "captive carry"(that's what today's experiment was), to "independent glide," and then fully powered flight, before commercial operations begin.

On the flight from Toronto to Seoul I had a chance to read a Harvard Business Review back issue from December 2009. In it was a great article titled: The Innovator’s DNA. The article talked about the characteristics of great innovators – how they think. It boiled down to five key skills.

1. Associating – the ability connect seemingly unrelated questions, ideas or problems from different fields. It is about finding the intersections of different disciplines.
2. Questioning – innovators constantly ask questions. They question the unquestionable. They ask “what-if?, “Why?”, “Why not?” They get a kick out of messing with the status quo.
3. Observing – scrutinizing everything from common phenomena to outliers. They watch, and in doing so, question, and associate.
4. Experimenting – innovators experiment with ideas, intellectually, and in the real world. They go see for themselves, try new things, observe the outcomes.
5. Networking – innovators devote time and energy testing ideas through a diverse network of individuals from different disciplines and backgrounds. They go out of their way to find radical opinions. They travel, visit people of different cultures and ways of thinking.

They practice, practice, practice and over time become confident in their creative skills. Innovators are willing to take risks. They want to make a difference in the world.

A start-up investment model developed by SA entrepreneur Eve Dmochowska (pictured) and her colleagues to solve key problems in SA start-up financing proved a big hit at the annual South by South West (SxSW) Interactive festival held in Austin, Texas earlier this week. Dan Oshinsky, a reporter for a local news station, described her as one of the best presenters he had seen at SxSW, alongside such luminaries as Clay Shirky and Marc Cuban.

The idea she presented, CrowdFunding, will obtain investment in R1 000 blocks from individuals, and raise R1m for its first fund. It is structured as a trust, which resolves a number of regulatory issues around investments and soliciting funds from the public.

The idea was launched almost by accident. When the news leaked out of a small preview circle, the pledges began streaming in, with 254 investors offering R842 000 in just the first two weeks. This was well ahead of her expectations, which was that R1m might take three or four months to raise.

You start a business and most likely you are excited. You have a great idea and you can’t wait to get going. At this moment the last thing you are thinking about is selling your business.

However, as your business gets established, the idea of positioning it for sale (even if you have no intention of selling) is always a good idea.You may indeed run your business for the rest of your life, or life make take an unexpected turn and you will need or want to sell. Either way, creating a business that is always positioned to sell is just a smart way to run a business. Let me explain.

Is Your Business All About You?

When I decided to sell my first business I went to lunch with my broker and described my business. I was really into personal branding back then and so I had formed my business in my image, injecting myself everywhere in it. Now, when it came time to sell, this was a liability. A buyer wants a profitable system for making money and if that system relies too heavily on the owner then you will likely be penalized with a lower valuation. I spent the next 12 months extracting my image from the business and ended up selling for the price I wanted. I could have saved myself a lot of effort by thinking about this when I started the business.