For fast-growing technology start-ups, there are many approaches to employee hiring and retention.

Two of the more successful ones, Facebook and Zappos, have very different methods, each with different goals: Facebook wants to hire entrepreneurs even if that means they will eventually leave, while Zappos wants to hire the best people to fit its culture and figure out how to keep them.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, said at a talk this weekend at Startup School, a Berkeley, Calif., event organized by Y Combinator, that Facebook seeks to hire entrepreneurial “hackers”–people who want to build something new–even though they may not want to stay for long. The company is focused on technology and tilts its hiring toward engineers, even for people in non-technical roles such as marketing, he said.

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The way we type is subject to the changing winds of technology, as well as safety concerns over issues like texting while driving.

One of the big debates is about keyboard layouts, which includes the traditional Qwerty design and the user-friendly but obscure Dvorak. Designers, however, have begun an even more far-reaching conversation about how we input information and whether there’s a product yet to hit the mainstream that could replace the keyboard altogether.

There’s certainly no shortage of innovative keyboards. An inverted “back-handed” one lets you cradle a keyboard and hit the keys from behind.

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When it comes to hauling in venture capital, Twitter has vaulted into the ranks of some notorious losers–remember Webvan?

In just two years, Twitter has raised roughly $155 million in venture capital, including $135 million this year. That’s a staggering sum for a revenue-less company that operates on the Web where capital-efficiency is underscored and technology costs are falling.

It’s even more unbelievable when you look at where Twitter ranks in the annals of venture funding.

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As companies look for new ways to squeeze costs out of their technology budgets, some are deciding that the next PC they purchase need not be a PC at all.

Instead, they are rolling out virtual desktops–a set-up consisting of a screen, keyboard and small connector box that ties into a powerful server in the computer room that has all the software, storage and processing capabilities that each desktop user needs.

Maryland Auto Insurance Fund, an insurance company in Annapolis, Md., says it plans to replace at least two-thirds of its 600 user desktops within 18 months with virtual PCs.

Cindy Warkentin, the company’s chief information officer, estimates that the move will save costs by allowing the company to replace fewer PCs every year.

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The Federal Trade Commission is planning three public discussions, starting in December, devoted to technology and consumer privacy.

According to the FTC, the roundtables will address topics such as social networking, cloud computing, online advertising and mobile marketing, the goal being “to determine how best to protect consumer privacy while supporting beneficial uses of the information and technological innovation.”

Behavioral advertising, in particular, has come under fire by privacy groups. Earlier this month, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Consumers Union and other related organizations called for stronger rules limiting what kinds of personal information are collected by marketers and how long they can hold on them.

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Fancy new smart phones and laptops may generate more buzz, but the desktop PC remains the workhorse of the office. Bosses who outfit staffers with mobile devices, however, may be able to wring more work out of them, according to a new Forrester (FORR) study.

The research firm surveyed more than 2,000 employees at companies with 100 or more workers to find how they use technology. Three-quarters use desktop computers, and two-thirds are anchored to their desks for at least four hours a day.

Laptops were only available to one in three computer-using workers, though this varied by profession–47 percent of business employees had them, compared with only 17 percent of retail and manufacturing workers. A mere 11 percent of workers owned smart phones, though that percentage was higher for salespeople and marketers.

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Ten privacy groups urged Congress on Tuesday to take greater steps to limit advertising that tracks consumers’ behavior online.

The coalition, which included the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Consumers Union and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, singled out behavioral advertising, in which Internet users are tracked, analyzed and served ads based on the information gleaned from their movements, in its recommendations. Doing something about the practice has become more urgent as consumers go online for increasingly sensitive transactions, members of the group said on a call with reporters.

“We want consumers to be able to take advantage of all of the new technologies without the technologies taking advantage of the consumers. Right now, that balance is not there,” Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, said.

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As the school year begins, be ready to hear pundits fretting once again about how kids today can’t write–and technology is to blame. Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into “bleak, bald, sad shorthand” (as University College of London English professor John Sutherland has moaned). An age of illiteracy is at hand, right?

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VMworld, the annual conference hosted by software maker VMware, is fast becoming one of the hot tech conferences, in large part because VMware’s technology has become an important selling point for tech-equipment makers like Dell (DELL) and Cisco (CSCO) Systems. There are likely to be dozens of new product announcements made at the conference, which kicks off Monday.

One company isn’t waiting. Arista Networks on Wednesday announced it has developed software for its gear that makes it easier to manage servers that run VMware’s “virtualization” software. A virtualized server can run up to 20 times the number of programs as one without the software, which is a big efficiency improvement for information-technology departments. But it’s also created a new problem: How do you keep track of everything running on these servers and make sure they can be accessed through the network, which is made up of physical devices called switches?

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Storage maker NetApp (NTAP) last week named Tom Georgens its chief executive. It was an orderly succession–Georgens was the company’s president and chief operating officer, and a board member since 2008–but as with any transition, the new executive will try to put his stamp on the company.

Georgens says that one of the things he will focus on is strengthening NetApp’s relationships with systems integrators, the consulting companies that recommend and install technology for customers.

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As Silicon Valley’s stock-driven wealth machine sputters in the recession, technology start-ups are exploring new ways for employees to tap their holdings.

Many of the moves have been triggered by Facebook Inc., which this week paid current and former employees who participated in a program that let them sell a portion of their shares in the privately held social-networking site. Current workers were allowed to sell up to $1 million worth of Facebook stock or 25 percent of their vested shares, whichever was greater, according to people familiar with the terms.

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Though my own family might find it hard to believe, I don’t generally keep my BlackBerry on my nightstand overnight. I keep it in a bureau drawer, and the few seconds it takes in the morning to walk over there strike me as the difference between an addiction and mere avid use.

Regardless, it’s fair to say I probably use my BlackBerry a little too avidly–and I’m far from alone. The New York Times (NYT) earlier this week took a look at high technology’s central place in the modern morning routine, finding that for many people, checking email or Facebook or Twitter (or all at once, if possible) comes before breakfast, coffee or even a visit to the bathroom.

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The prevailing wisdom has been that the important word in ‘digital advertising agency’ wasn’t the advertising as much as it was the digital. Technology was king.

That has all changed, as seen in two deals in the past week. On Sunday, Microsoft (MSFT) sold its digital advertising agency Razorfish to French advertising giant Publicis Groupe. This followed closely on the heels of Google’s (GOOG) sale of its Google Radio advertising business to WideOrbit, a closely held company with a leading position in managing advertising on cable networks.

These deals give an indication of how the circle of competence for the two technology-led giants has changed. A decade ago, a key differentiator of a digital agency was technology and its understanding of how the then-mysterious internet functions.

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Last night’s “Charlie Rose” featured an interview with Ivan Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon (VZ), who talked about communications in Iran, the company’s prospects for carrying Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and the recent news that Verizon Wireless will carry a Google (GOOG) Android-powered cellphone.

Mr. Seidenberg called Iranian citizens’ use of technology and wireless communications “a great thing,” saying “for us as a network operator, it’s the network effect. The more people on a network, the more valuable the entire network becomes. There’s no question in my mind that that model will get repeated over and over and over again.”

He also said that efforts to block Internet use in China, Iran and other countries will only work for a short time. “It can’t work long term. The power of the people will override that without any question. And it’ll happen sooner than they think because the technology is just too pervasive.”

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Silicon Valley was abuzz Wednesday with news that the Justice Department had begun an antitrust investigation into the hiring practices of some of the best-known companies in the technology and biotech industries, including Google, Apple, Yahoo and Genentech.

The question being asked most frequently was how the word “anticompetitive” could possibly be applied to the industry’s perpetual fight over talent.

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