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Failure. All startups fear it. Many, at one point or another, encounter it. There's no denying that failure is a big part of startup culture. Some of the best and brightest preach the "fail fast" methodology, wherein quickly launching and fixing small failures can help avoid "the big one."

Whether you subscribe to this practice or not, the reality is that startups fail all the time, and luckily many entrepreneurs share their experiences "post-mortem" with the community. We've covered a handful of these posts from startups, but now ChubbyBrain has put together a hefty collection of these essays for your education.

Curation is currently one of "the chosen" buzz words in the social media zeitgeist (that's another). But as abundant as the talk of curation is, actual curation tools have been in relatively short order.

In recent weeks, I've been experimenting with some newly released curation platforms. The first, Curated.by, lets you capture tweets around a specific topic using a plug-in that's installed on your Twitter.com profile. You can then easily tag and sort tweets into "bundles," which can then be embedded in a blog post for some additional context to whatever you're reporting on.

Startup Weekend, an organization dedicated to the worldwide education and proliferation of entrepreneurship, has made a name for itself over the last few years with its unique weekend-long events. Over 17,000 participants have attended one of the organization's 120+ global events, from which over 560 new startups have launched. Thanks to a grant announced today from the Kauffman Foundation, Startup Weekend to continue to grow and better educate entrepreneurs in more cities around the globe.

Earlier this summer, we posed the question of whether or not native mobile applications would eventually be made obsolete by the mobile Web. Many agreed that the power of the mobile Web and cloud over native apps may be an inevitability, but according to a survey released today, four out of five app developers say their customers prefer a native experience. With this demand from customers, which features are they looking for most in a mobile experience? Here are some results from the survey that may surprise you.

In an overcrowded world of mortal human beings, struggling with scarcity and inequities, networked technology can extend the reach and vision of any of us individually - beyond the wildest dreams of most of human history. The Internet is a great source of hope.

Enter Angel Investors. They give money, usually their own from previous business successes, to early stage startup companies aiming to create the future of the Internet. They enable inventors to quit their jobs and to build their technologies without immediately worrying about revenue. If there's trouble among the Angels, then the entrepreneurs they help fund and mentor face trouble in their efforts to build the future of the internet that we will all benefit from. Michael Arrington's report of collusion among Silicon Valley Super Angels really is as epic a story as it seems - and if the allegations are true, the consequences could affect everyone in the world.

With the angst from the angels and venture capitalists debate still hanging in the air, and the thickening plot of "Angelgate," it's easy to forget that courteous, polite and gracious behavior can save your startup from easy pitfalls. In an industry that functions largely on connections, burning bridges is never a smart move, intentional or not. Here are a pair of examples from seasoned venture capitalists on how playing nice can go a long way.

When startups fail and are forced to shut down, often times one of the co-founders will offer a short blog post about what happened and why the company wasn't able to succeed. Not everyone does however, as reveling in your own failure isn't the most fun thing to do. In the case of the failed individual journalism platform NewsTilt, co-founder Paul Biggar penned a 7,000 word essay last week that painstakingly details how and why his company ultimately failed, providing a must-read set of lessons for any entrepreneur.

Startup conferences - like last week's DEMO Conference in Santa Clara, California - are great opportunities for young companies to not only gain some exposure, but to network with other like-minded entrepreneurs. One company I spoke to at DEMO, Zappli, makes a social shopping app that leverages many existing services through partnerships and APIs - a strategy many young startups could benefit from.

In the Internet startup space, some companies choose to develop enterprise solutions they hope will attract large corporate contracts. While some entrepreneurs have experience giving investors their 30 second pitch, corporate CIOs are a bit of a different beast when it comes to selling a product. During the first day of product pitches and launches at DEMO this week, a panel moderated by Computerworld's executive editor Julia King focused on this very issue. Here are some tips for enterprise startups looking to snag those big enterprise contracts.

A Swedish couple has built a platform for virtually trading 21 of the hottest companies on the Web, including Google, Twitter, Foursquare, Amazon and and Groupon.

Gigapie launched today, with Facebook priced at 200 credits, or $20. Flickr is 100 credits. AOL is 110 credits. Prices are based on demand for the company and the amount of traffic it gets. You can cash out via PayPal once you earn 500 credits.