ReadWriteWeb

As part of our "Never Mind the Valley" series here, we often feature communities outside the Silicon Valley that have become thriving centers for entrepreneurship. We've profiled cities like Boston, Montreal, and Austin.

Sometimes we notice there's a flurry of startup activity in a particular location that warrants coverage, and sometimes we're pitched stories about these locations. (And you should feel free to pitch us as to why your city should be featured, particularly if you're outside the U.S.) But as great as these sources for stories are, neither offer any sort of scientific method for pointing to the cities that are the best locations for startups.

The great thing about following the hundreds of venture capitalist bloggers is that every now then when one of them writes a rather poignant entry, several other VCs will latch on and provide their opinions on their blogs or in comments. Such is the case surrounding a recent article by Mark Suster of GRP Partners about the "agile board," a phrase he has coined to explain the techniques startups should use to keep their board members more actively involved in the business. Since being posted to Suster's blog, Both Sides of the Table, a handful of other VCs have weighed in with their opinions on the subject.

Last week we discussed how no matter how intriguing your startup is to an investor, they may still decline to get involved or look further at your company simply because it's not a fit for them. While it is important to understand that different investors have different needs and motivations, it is equally important for both parties to know how to correctly take the next step and handle the rejection in the right way.

A popular trend among startups these days is to create a video pitch. Cameras are cheaper, and do-it-yourself applications like iMovie on the Mac make video editing fun and easy. But like any form of new media, video is not just a secondary platform on which to present a carbon copy of something from an earlier medium; in other words, a video pitch needs to take advantage of the fact that it's a video. Videos have motion and interactivity and the ability to show anything with pictures and animation, which is much more than we can say simply with text.

The talk of the venture capital and entrepreneurial towns these days is the Open Angel Forum which after its second event in Boulder, Colorado is now announcing two more events in New York and San Francisco. Brainchild of Jason Calacanis, the Open Angel Forum (OAF) is an opportunity for startups to get face-time with active big-time venture capitalists and angel investors - all for the low, low price of free.

If you procrastinated on applying for TechStars Boston and missed Monday night's deadline but still want to attend a TechStars event, their summer program in Boulder, Colorado is now accepting applications.

TechStars is a highly competitive funding and mentoring program based in Boston, Boulder and Seattle that helps young startups jump-start their businesses. Their impressive list of over 50 mentors includes Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg, venture capitalist Fred Wilson and Foundry Group director Brad Feld.

It may soon be easier for foreign startup entrepreneurs to set up shop in the United States thanks to immigration reform which would create a specialized startup visa program.

The proposed program would make more visas available to entrepreneurs who have at least $250,000 in funding from a U.S.-based venture capital firm, or $100,000 in angel funding. The startup must also have plans to either create five new jobs every two years, raise at least $1 million every two years, or generate at least $1 million in revenue.

The downturn certainly hasn't made getting a term sheet an easy endeavor. Many early-stage companies have chosen to forgo traditional investment in favor of participating in incubator programs . This trend is exactly why the TechStars mentorship program is expanding to yet another city. The program just announced plans to launch a Seattle program in the fall of 2010.

Here are some of the highlights from the week's Web Tech action on ReadWriteWeb. On the product side we explored Yahoo's ongoing troubles, reported on Firefox 3's record-setting week, covered a new "universal edit" wiki offering, and checked out some Mobile Web apps. On the trends side, we looked at what could disrupt Google search, explored the issue of 'info overload', analyzed lessons from Flickr, polled you about IM clients, and interviewed VC Brad Feld.