The tech industry is full of battles – epic and otherwise – between companies that position themselves (or are positioned by others, perhaps) as enemies: Apple versus Microsoft. Google versus Microsoft. Having a target like this isn’t a bad idea, as it helps you make sure you can differentiate yourself from your competition. But startups are sometimes advised to not take on these sorts of skirmishes, at least not explicitly, particularly with more established corporations. Compete for users, don’t pick a fight with Google, suggests a recent LA Times article . Sponsor But taking on your challengers directly shows a great deal of confidence and guts. And if you have the product or service to back it up, you can demonstrate vision and ambition – and attract the attention and admiration of users and investors. Posterous may be the example of the week for this. On Monday, Posterous announced that it would be posting one resource a day for the next two weeks to help users migrate their content from “dying platforms” to the microblogging service. “A lot of you have asked for help moving your old blog, photos or videos to Posterous. You grouched about dying platforms that haven’t added new features in ages, sites that have made it too complex to perform the most basic tasks and places that smother your content in ads.” Posterous’s first target: Ning , whose abandonment of the freemium pricing model back in April frustrated a lot of users. Next target: Tumblr , the site that Posterous is probably most frequently compared with. You might be hard-pressed to call either Ning or Tumblr “dying platforms.” Or if you’re Posterous, you might not be. Posterous is clearly calling out and openly taking on its competition. In a blog post earlier this week, Flightcaster co-founder Jason Freedman wrote about the three characteristics he sees in the YC companies that are successfully raising money: Leverage, Product and Ambition. YC alum Posterous is demonstrating that ambition – ” pure, unbridled ambition ” – hoping to show it has not just the guts, but the product to back that up. How its competition responds over the course of the next two weeks will be interesting to watch. Photo credit: Flickr user REL Waldman Discuss

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There are a lot of great activities happening in the startup world (including the ReadWriteWeb Real-Time Web Summit on June 11), and we’re like to help you make sure you’re tracking on these opportunities. We’re starting a calendar on ReadWriteStart that will include both events and application deadlines (for competitions and incubators, for example). Below you will find a few of the dates that have caught our attention this week: Sponsor SemTech Start-Up Competition Semantic Universe is seeking to identify and recognize promising start-ups in the SemTech field. In partnership with Vator.tv Semantic Universe is hosting its 2010 SemTech Start-Up Competition . Winners will receive an overall prize package totaling over $12,000. Applications due June 6. Women 2.0 Labs Women 2.0 is sponsoring Women 2.0 Labs , a new 5-week program (July 6 – August 5, 2010) for engineers, developers, biz dev folks, and marketing mavens to develop high-growth technology ventures in San Francisco, CA. Applications due June 20. Meetups Everywhere Several entrepreneurial-related events were announced this week via the new Meetup Everywhere platform. Fred Wilson announced ongoing AVC meetups . And in conjunction with This Week in Startups , you might just find a Startup Meetup near you on June 8. Do you have something to add? You can leave a comment or contact us with the information and we’ll include you in our new calendar of startup events and deadlines. As with the ReadWriteWeb Events Guide , we’ll include ways for you to easily import or download the information into your own calendar tools. Discuss

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Earlier this month, Google announced the addition of biking directions to Google Maps. Today, Google is also enhancing its maps by adding more data about local public transit options. Whenever you search for a train station in Google Maps, you can now see a list of transit lines that service this station. Google Maps will also display the next scheduled departure times for every line. Sponsor We have to say, however, that while this feature worked great for the example given in Google’s blog post (” Zurich HB “) and most of the larger transit stations in big cities like New York , finding the right name for smaller train stations can be rather frustrating. One More Feature That Sets Google Apart from the Competition While this is only a small addition to Google’s mapping product, the constant drumbeat of new features and partnerships that Google Maps announces on an almost-weekly basis makes it hard for competitors like Bing Maps to keep pace. Even though Bing Maps offers a very competitive set of mapping and directions features that still outperform Google Maps in many ways, Google is currently offering a more comprehensive set of features. Thanks to Google’s strong emphasis on getting local businesses to update their own data in Google Maps, the company is also able to offer better results for local searches. Given Microsoft’s renewed focus on Bing – and the Web in general – it would be wrong to count Bing Maps out, but for the time being, it looks like it will be hard for Microsoft to catch up with Google. Discuss

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YouTern , an online community to link interns with startups, has launched their pilot program in California, with plans to expand nationwide. While there are many programs that assist students with finding internships with large, established companies, until the launch of YouTern, there was no similar service helping entrepreneurial-minded students find a position with a startup. And now in turn, startups will have a resource to identify and recruit talented students for internship positions, a move that may help build a ” startup culture ” so college graduates don’t feel as compelled to only seek employment with major corporations. Sponsor Internships are useful for students as they can help them prepare for their professional careers, through mentorship and on-the-job experience. The latter is particularly important in these rough economic times as job experience can set a college graduate apart from the competition. Indeed, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the number of college students planning to gain experience through an internship in their field of study has increased dramatically in recent years – from 10 to almost 70 percent. Furthermore, employers indicate that they anticipate offering employment to a majority of their interns. One of YouTern’s key features is its ability to match interns and companies based on information about a student’s degree/major, location, and hours available and a business’s category and needs. Compatibility of interns and potential employers is ranked, with only qualifying matches delivered. Currently subscriptions and postings to the site are free. “The rules have changed for young talent entering the workforce,” said YouTern CEO Mark Babbitt. “Students don’t have jobs waiting for them at graduation and must now plan their career paths years in advance. In our new economy, a career-relevant internship is the key to success.” Not only are internships becoming more important for college students, but many young people indicate they want to become entrepreneurs in their own right. YouTern looks to offer college students an important service to kickstart their careers. Discuss

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The speculation about Apple launching its own streaming service in place of Lala is fueling the competition for online music services. Apple acquired Lala last year. The popular service sold songs for 10 cents. The songs streamed in web browsers. Music could not be downloaded. Sponsor On May 31, Apple will shut the service down . The streams will no longer be available. Apple will give iTunes credits to Lala customers. MP3tunes is one of the most interesting alternatives to Lala. Michael Robertson is the company’s founder. He is also the founder of MP3.com, a company he started in the 1990s and later sold. During its time, MP3.com was the largest online music site in the world. MP3tunes has a promotion underway for Lala customers. Lala customers that wish to switch to MP3tunes may do so for 10 cents, the cost of single track on Lala. For the price of that song, uses get 50 GB of free storage space for their music. The service would normally cost $39.95. MP3tunes offers an API, which may give the service its biggest edge. They have figured out how to get the music you store to play on any number of devices including: The iPhone, Android and a variety of mobile devices Consoles such as the Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii,the TiVo. The Clarion MiND for playing in a car. Web apps including Google Desktop Unlike Lala, users may keep their music in an online locker but they may also download it. Other services share similar models. For example, Canonical launched a music service earlier this year that allows people to buy music, sync it to their own device and upload it to a cloud service. MP3tunes offer a similar service. Michael Robertson: “About a year ago I wrote, “Your music will be controlled by Lala and will eventually vanish, because no company lasts forever.” I can’t promise MP3tunes will last forever – all companies will eventually go away. But I can do the next best thing. Each MP3tunes customer gets a software program called LockerSync which you can use to download your entire library anytime you like. It’s the ultimate insurance policy so that you’ll never be dependent on MP3tunes or any other company for your media.” What will the Apple service look like? The labels are wary of Apple. Deals will be much more expensive. And we hardly expect an API. And we wonder if that may be Apple’s achilles heal. Without an API, Apple will have to rely on its own devices to deliver music. And that’s a potentially limiting approach. Discuss

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