In five short years, cloud computing has gone from being a quaint technology to a major catchphrase. It all started in 2006 when Amazon began offering its really Simple Storage Service and soon following up with its Elastic Compute service.

Just like that, the concept of on-demand, programmable infrastructure that could be accessed over the Internet became a reality. Infrastructure as a service has been talked about, alternatively in hushed and gushing tones. Grid computing, utility computing, on-demand computing — they were all ways to describe what Amazon Web Services had delivered.

DENVER - The Colorado House of Representatives passed House Bill 1045 - also known as the "angel investor tax credit" - on Friday, with bipartisan support. It is now up to the Colorado Senate to approve it before the end of the legislative session on May 11.

The bill, sponsored in the House by Rep. John Kefalas, D-Fort Collins, would renew the Colorado Innovation Investment Tax Credit, initially created in 2009 to encourage investments in small and startup businesses.

The bill expired in 2010 after a one-year pilot program. If signed into law this year, it would provide investors in small businesses a state income tax credit of 15 percent of their donation up to a maximum credit of $20,000.

India and China are both battling rampant inflation. Their central banks have taken aggressive tightening measures to curb rising costs The result has been downward revisions to their GDP growth.

With GDP growth slowing, stocks in these countries may no longer seem so appealing, but Citi has a solution.

A new report from the bank identifies the countries expected to drive global growth between now and 2050. And while China, India, and Brazil all make the cut, we've focused on those growth alternatives you may want to focus on beyond the BRICs.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke called for an uptick in federal funding of high-priority scientific research in an address Monday morning.

His remarks, delivered to a packed Lohrfink Auditorium, kicked off a two-day conference titled "New Building Blocks for Jobs and Economic Growth," which was sponsored by the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Athena Alliance, The Conference Board, the Kauffman Foundation and U.S. National Academies.

The conference addressed the government's role in research and development and supporting American innovation.

Take a look at this map depicting the U.S. at night. What should be immediately obvious is that there are a lot of bright lights exactly where the richest people live: the East Coast megalopolis from Boston through Washington, D.C., Midwestern burgs such as Chicago, Southern cities such as Atlanta and the West Coast conurbation that goes by the name Los Angeles.

Inspired by this association—and others revealed in night time images that stretch back to the mid-1960s taken by the U.S. Department of Defense—economists, sociologists and other scientists with an interest in economic development have begun to explore whether nighttime lights might help reveal the relative richness of regions for which standard economic data is lacking. With that in mind economist William Nordhaus of Yale University and sociologist Xi Chen of Quinnipiac University parsed "luminosity" data from 1992 to 2008 for a wide range of countries world-wide—and even sub-regions within those countries.

There has been a surge in interest with the world of the Navy SEALs since the Osama bin Laden action (this piece in the WSJ was a particularly good profile) and I confess to being caught up in it myself.

One of my portfolio company CEOs, Will Tumulty of Ready Financial, is a former Navy SEAL (1990-1995). Will was kind enough to introduce me to a SEAL classmate of his, Brendan Rogers (SEAL 1990-2000), who joined me and 20 NYC CEOs/founders from the tech scene recently to talk about the SEALs – the training, the planning and the operations behind their combat operations – as well as draw out some relevant lessons for entrepreneurs. Brendan went on to HBS and McKinsey after the SEALs and then started his own hedge fund with a partner, so he had an interesting, multi-faceted perspective.

For nearly a generation, the information sector, which comprises everything from media and data processing to internet-related businesses, has been ballyhooed as a key driver for both national and regional economic growth. In the 1990s economist Michael Mandell predicted cutting-edge industries like high-tech would create 2.8 million new jobs over 10 years. This turned out to be something of a pipe dream. According to a recent 2010 New America Foundation report, the information industry shed 68,000 jobs in the past decade.

Yet this year, information-related employment finally appears to be on the upswing, according to statistics compiled by Pepperdine University economist Michael Shires. The impact of this growth is particularly marked in such long-time tech hot beds as Huntsville, Ala., Madison, Wis., and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley, all of which have relatively high concentrations of such jobs.

A decade ago, the dot-com boom fueled a wave of venture investment in Internet-enabled education companies. Since then, the evolution of social media coupled with improvements in connectivity and mobility would seem to presage a new class of companies looking to make learning more effective and less expensive.

But it’s going to take more to jump start real education reform, Jonathan Grayer, former chief executive of education company Kaplan Inc., said Friday, speaking at the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association’s Capital Connection in Washington, D.C. “Changing that model can only occur in very dire times,” he said.

Those times could be upon the U.S. over the next several years as states and municipalities struggle with the impact of constrained tax revenue and falling federal support, while parents demand an education system that produces results. “The customer for K-to-12 education in this country is the parent,” said Grayer, who is now chairman and CEO on investment firm Weld North.

Efforts to renew — and overhaul — the well-regarded Small Business Investment Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, which expire at the end of this month, may be in jeopardy now that the Senate appears unlikely to vote on its reauthorization bill anytime soon. And the person behind that bill’s demise, according to Democrats, at least, happens to be one of its chief architects — Senator Olympia Snowe, the top Republican on the Senate Small Business Committee.

S.B.I.R. requires federal agencies to set aside 2.5 percent of their grants to outside researchers for small companies. S.T.T.R. is a smaller initiative that requires the five agencies funding the most research to set aside additional money for partnerships between small firms and nonprofit institutions.

MONTREAL, May 17 /CNW Telbec/ - Réseau Capital today published statistics on venture capital activity in Québec for the first quarter (Q1) of 2011, as compiled by Thomson Reuters.

The number of Québec companies that received venture capital (VC) increased in the first three months of 2011. Fifty companies received financing, up 16% from the 43 companies financed the year before. At the same time, dollar flows to Québec VC-backed firms were down, with $82 million invested in total between January and March, or 19% below the $102 million invested in Q1 2010. This decrease is due to smaller deal sizes, as amounts invested per Québec company averaged $1.6 million during the quarter.

May 17 (Reuters) - Canadian venture capital investments totaled C$315 million ($325 million) in the first quarter, roughly in line with the year-ago period, as the sector continued to struggle in an extended funding drought.

According to data compiled by the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA) and research partner Thomson Reuters, dollar flows went to 111 innovative companies in the January-March period, with investments per firm averaging C$2.8 million.

New commitments to venture capital fund-raising totaled C$217 million in the quarter, compared with C$386 million in the same period a year ago.

Reporters love the term "super angels." They use it at almost every opportunity they get, and sometimes even when they don't have the right opportunity for it. In my view, the terminology being used for early-stage investors is not as clear as it should be. I've talked about this on several conference panels, but figured it would make sense to do a post explaining my taxonomy of the early-stage investing world.

Friends and Family: Or sometimes referred to as the 3Fs for Friends, Family and Fools. This is probably the very first group that an entrepreneur may approach for some funding. These are "investors" who are investing in you -- not on the basis of your idea or the merits of your investment, but on the basis of a personal relationship. Sometimes this money comes with strings attached – strings in the form of expectations, which if not met can often hurt the relationship. The 3Fs invest their own hard-earned money, usually under $50K. They may or may not be accredited investors, and they don't invest regularly or often.

If you've been in the innovation support business for very long, you know there are some organizations that are just hard to describe. They may not be exactly like the commonly accepted definition of some economic development programs or approaches. Part of RIAN’s mission is to establish a definition for these complex or hybrid entities as Venture Development Organizations (VDOs).

Our experience reveals that although VDOs necessarily come in lots of shapes and sizes, they share may characteristics with each other and with other tech-based economic development organizations. The most important characteristic they share is success. VDOs are helping create good jobs in high growth innovation-based ventures.

As regulators consider easing online fundraising rules for small firms, a new directory lists more than 400 websites around the world that already generate capital for everything from start-ups to satellites.

Launched last week by crowdsourcing.org, a Dallas-based website, the directory includes crowd-funding platforms for donations, philanthropy and sponsorships, as well as peer-to-peer lending and investing.

Crowd-funding sites first appeared about a decade ago, linking fundraisers to large pools of donors. Rather than a return on investment, small companies that raise money in this fashion typically offer a token gift, such as a T-shirt or a mug to supporters, to avoid running afoul of securities regulators .

You probably can't describe the difference between Coke and Pepsi. Perhaps one cola seems sweeter, but you couldn't certainly distinguish them in a taste test. Yet you know without a doubt which one you like more.

The fierce brand loyalties of Coke vs. Pepsi are a marvel of American marketing.

Slightly older, Coca-Cola was always the dominant brand.

Recently released U.S. Census Bureau data indicates the share of employment in companies of different ages. The figure below shows that, in 2009, only two percent (2%) of Americans working in private sector businesses were employed in companies started that year. Even young companies, those aged one-to-ten, only employed another 19.5 percent of private sector workers.

So where do most people in the private sector work? The answer is mature companies. The Census Bureau’s data reveal that 55.8 percent of those working in the private sector are employed in companies 26 years or older. Another 8.4 percent have jobs in companies aged 21 to 25. And 6.6 percent work in businesses between 16 and 20 years old.

Why are some companies able to consistently conceive of, create, and bring to market innovative and profitable new products and services while so many others
struggle?

In an exhaustive new study under its annual The Global Innovation 1000, global strategy consulting firm Booz & Company says, it isn't the amount of money they spend on research and development and that there is no statistically significant relationship between financial performance and innovation spending, in terms of either total R&D dollars or R&D as a percentage of revenues.

Being a member of Generation Y sure ain’t cheap.

According to a new study by credit card big-wig American Express, Australians aged 18-24 have been priced out of owning assets that previous generations took as a given. Instead, they’re opting for the more wallet friendly renting, loaning and swapping.

The American Express ‘Future of Consumer Spending’ survey found that, as the cost of housing, domestic travel and accommodation, and fuel has risen, Gen Y has reined back on big-ticket buys.

Carnegie Mellon University on Sunday announced the formation of a new fund to provide early-stage business financing to alumni who have graduated from CMU within the past five years through matching grants of $50,000 and other support.

The lead donor to the Open Field Entrepreneurs Fund is CMU alum Jonathan Kaplan, former CEO of Pure Digital and developer of the Flip video camera, with his wife Marci Glazer. Peter Stern, Datek Online founder and Kaplan’s classmate, is also providing financial and advisory support.

Today we mark the end of the Business Plan Challenge season by unveiling the winners, but it is really just the beginning of a journey for these companies and all of you who entered this year.

While today’s Challenge winners and finalists are as diverse as South Florida, there were some common themes:

• You don’t need a mountain of cash to start a business. Most of today’s winners are bootstrapping their companies. With today’s technologies, that’s very possible, and in today’s economy, that’s smart. But, says Challenge judge Alice Horn, “Bootstrapping will only get you so far. Don’t skimp on professional advice as you build your business.”