Startup Weekend Omaha has been taking place all weekend long and will wrap up tonight at 6 p.m. with the eight teams presenting their projects to a panel of judges. For those that cannot be in attendance, Silicon Prairie News will be live-streaming the event. Check back to this page starting at 6 p.m. CDT for full coverage of the presentations.

Update 3/21 6:00pm: We're Live!

Update 3/21 9:06pm: GiftBright.com wins Startup Weekend Omaha and the $2100 prize. Check Silicon Prairie News for videos of the pitches, as well as a full recap of the weekend's events.

From TechCrunch.com, by Sarah Lacy:

Pierre Omidyar on eBay and Pez Dispensers, Leaving the Valley and the Most Important Thing He’s Ever Done

It’s almost a cliché that great Silicon Valley entrepreneurs don’t go sit on a beach when they make a lot of money, they get back to work building another company or at least investing in other people’s companies. But what did eBay founder Pierre Omidyar do?

Read full article

• Does The City You Live in Even Matter? (businessinsider.com) via Ken Moreano
• The only reason investors say ‘no’ (feeds.venturehacks.com)
• 19 ideas for start-ups (weblog.blogads.com)
• Why Software Really Fails And What to Do About It (www.drdobbs.com)
• MVPP: Minimum Viable Product Purchase and the lesson of the first trash talk T's (www.sneakerheadvc.com)
• The Founder Institute – A Graduate’s Firsthand Account (roachblog.com)
• The Case for the Fat Start-Up (voices.allthingsd.com)
• 5 things I “knew” (or should have known) before starting a company. (blog.wepay.com)
• The New Rules of Entrepreneurship in the Digital Age (greenhornconnect.com)
• Grand Visions and the VC Model (venturefizz.com)
• Do you really need to know everything about your business? (blog.cubeofm.com)
• How to Intern for a Startup (blog.wepay.com)
• That's why I will never invest any money in your company (fseek.me)
• If I Launched a Startup (thestartuplawyer.com)
• The End Of 9-To-5: When Work Time Is Anytime (www.npr.org)

If you have any startup-related links you'd like to share, shoot me a note!

Mentioned this week

• Filming on location in front of Omaha City Hall
• South by Southwest:
• Attendees from the Prairie at South by Southwest
• The Silicon Prairie Party hosted by Big Omaha
• DJ Bonehead at the Silicon Prairie Party
• Thanks again to our party sponsors
• Gary Vaynerchuk's #SecretWineParty (photos)
• Don't Move, Build a Community Where You Live panel
• Scotty Henderson of We Can End This and its use of Square
• Dave Rimington of the Boomer Esiason Foundation
• Startup Weekend Omaha kicks off tonight
• Big Omaha tickets on sale today

We Can End This was one of two non-pofits to utilize Square's mobile credit card payment system at this year's South by Southwest. Photo by Danny Schreiber

South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive's official cause, We Can End This, has already made an impact – from boosting the awareness factor for hunger in America to raising actual dollars for a solution – but it's not over yet.

Earlier today, Scott Henderson, the cause's campaign manager, sent out an email alerting us that it would take only 200 people from Nebraska to put the state in the Digital Can Drive Top 10. Accomplishing such a ranking would reward Nebraska with a delivery of 150,000 meals for the hungry from Tyson Foods.

Currently in 10th place is one of our neighbors to the north, Wisconsin, with 285 cans. Here are can counts from a few of the states on the Prairie:

• Nebraska: 132
• Iowa: 18
• South Dakota: 2

The Digital Can Drive ends at 4 p.m. tomorrow. I encourage you to take a moment to give your state a boost with a digital can donation of your own at wecanendthis.com.

Also, when I was catching up with Scott in the SXSW Blogger Lounge (above) this past Saturday he sold me on making a small donation to We Can End This.

1. I like the cause
2. He was accepting donations via Square, a credit card payment system for mobile devices (a startup co-founded by one of the co-founders of Twitter, Jack Dorsey)

The Square iPhone attachment plugs into the same spot where you'd plug in your headphones. Photo by Danny Schreiber

Check out the video below to see Square in action. We Can End This is one of only two non-profits who were given beta access to this technology. The other one was charity: water out of New York, which was also raising funds at SXSW Interactive.

"We just wanted to release something nice and simple, easy to navigate, easy to use…something that does one thing and does it well," said Brian Lambelet, reflect7's web designer. "Final Madness is a breakdown of all the different [NCAA men's basketball] brackets. You can view the teams by region, and it has easy slide navigation, which not many apps are using."

While Final Madness provides ravenous fans with up-to-the-minute NCAA coverage, reflect7 is broadcasting more than sports scores. From the onset, the company's abided by a comprehensive transparency policy, making everything from ad revenue and sales numbers (below) to an autobiographical reflection on the rigors of iPhone development available to the public.

“We wanted to show people maybe thinking about getting into iPhone development what's going on at that time,” Lambelet said. “It also helped us to strategize. Unless you really have an idea sketched out on paper, you're usually just making notes and talking about it.”

Screenshot of finalmadness.com/iphones, taken at 2:40 p.m.

Although this sort of openness is rare in the fiercely competitive field of iPhone development, reflect7 hopes its own example will encourage more entrepreneurs to adopt a “we're all in this together” outlook. And, even if some of the eyes scrutinizing reflect7's data belong to potential rivals, Lambelet remains undeterred.

“We're going to expand out of the iPhone industry pretty soon – we'll keep updating our apps, but we're going to develop other products ,” he said. “We're sort of safeguarded in that regard. Also, in order for a competitor to copy us, develop a product and get it approved before we're finished, he'd have to be pretty talented. I'd have to give him props for that.”

To help spread the word about Final Madness, reflect7 is seeking to incorporate the broad reach of social media. During the company's latest promotion, anyone who follows reflect7 on Twitter or becomes a fan on Facebook is entered to win a 40-inch TV.

First up, for those of you in attendance, here's a list of the sessions we know of with speakers or panelists representing companies from the Silicon Prairie:

Panelists from the Prairie

Saturday

12:30 p.m. – Banking 2.0: Financial Services Driven by People & Emerging Technologies

From SmartyPig out of Des Moines: Bob Weinschenk, CEO

12:30 p.m. – Measuring Blogger Credibility: FTC Regulation vs. Crowdsourced Solutions

From Tekamah, Nebraska: Linsey Knerl or Wise Bread

5 p.m. – Don't Move! Build a Startup Community Where You Live

From Silicon Prairie News (Woo hoo! That's us.) out of Omaha: Jeff Slobotski, Founder

Tuesday

5 p.m. – The State of Music Blogs In 2010

From Lava Row out of Des Moines: Nathan T. Wright

Twitter List: Individuals & Companies from the Prairie at SXSW

For those of you in Austin, and frankly, all around the world, interested in keeping up with what's going on in Austin with the people visiting from the Prairie, check out: twitter.com/SiliconPrairie/sxsw-2010. We need your help to grow this list. If you're down here, or know of someone who is, please send a tweet our way (@SiliconPrairie) or leave a comment below. Thanks!

• Do You Need a Partner (wsj.com) via John Gustafson
• How to Quit Your Job (www.bothsidesofthetable.com)
• Raising Angel Money (www.bothsidesofthetable.com)
• How to Quit Your Job (www.bothsidesofthetable.com)
• Start-up Advice (www.bothsidesofthetable.com)
• Work expands to the time allowed (www.johndcook.com)
• Lean Startup, and The Stooges (blog.metaoptimize.com)
• Founder of ZOHO Gives Bootstrapping Tips on Mixergy (mixergy.com)
• Optimizing for fundamental vs strategic value (www.sachinrekhi.com)
• Why news editors will become community moderators (marciovm.com)
• Employed with a side of startup (blog.asmartbear.com)

If you have any startup-related links you'd like to share, shoot me a note!