A nice selection of resources for hiring the right talent from Small Business Trends, including how you can make the most of an interview and why you should offer a “quit now” bonus to new employees.

Online virtual worlds like Entropia and Second Life are offering young people a way to learn the ins and outs of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneur Magazine gives two examples of teenagers who utilized their passion for online role playing games to build successful businesses.

Jeff Bussgang at Staying Entrepreneurial asks, What motivates entrepreneurs? This question is particularly interesting when one considers the many open source projects for which developers receive no financial reward. Bussgang posits: “The reward for the entrepreneur is not just about the money – although, sure, they are motivated by the money — but what really drives great entrepreneurs is the ego, pride and feeling of recognition and respect.”

At Risky Business, Matt Bandyk discusses whether peer-to-peer lending is a good option to finance startups. Social networking type sites like prosper.com connect lenders and borrowers directly to each other without being mediated through financial institutions.

Two free ebooks via Small Business Trends: 100 Best Kept Marketing Secrets and Best Business Blogs (both in PDF format).

The Digital Influence Index (PDF), a survey by Fleishman-Hillard and Harris Interactive, examined the impact of the internet on consumers in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Some of the key findings are:

“Across all three countries addressed by the study, the Internet has roughly double the influence of the second strongest medium — television — and roughly 10 times the influence of printed media. Globally, however, online advertising captures only 7% to 8% of the total advertising market.” (2)

“As much as they value these benefits, European consumers in the U.K., France, and Germany still have strong concerns about Internet safety and about the trustworthiness of the information they find online.” (4)

“Although most survey results were consistent across all three countries studied, several interesting distinctions emerged: U.K. consumers are the most likely to have created an online profile site on a social networking page. Germany leads the three countries in Web research and Web 2.0 publishing; German Web users evidently like to express their opinions online but are careful to check their facts. French consumers are the most engaged in digital communications — two-thirds of Web users own a webcam and three-fourths use instant messaging.” (5)

Forbes ranks the best countries for business here. Denmark takes the top spot, followed by Ireland, Finland, the United States and the United Kingdom rounding out the top five.

A study (PDF) by Deloitte and the National Venture Capital Association surveying the opinions of 400 venture capitalists worldwide found that European countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom are emerging as leaders in the life sciences and clean technology fields. Ranking second behind the United States are Japan in telecommunication technology, Taiwan in semi conductor innovation, and India in software development.

Via The Wall Street Journal: a list of other entrepreneurship blogs worth checking out. Of course, that means alongside ours.

A recent story via Forbes.com tells how some of today’s self-made billionaires, such as George Soros, Sandy Weill, J. K. Rowling, and Oprah Winfrey, built their successes from very small beginnings.