Google is kicking of its Google I/O developer conference today to much anticipation. The company’s shares hit $900 and continued to to climb this morning, a first for Google.

The stock price hit a high of $911.45 around 10:06 a.m. Eastern time this morning and is trading around $906 at the time of this post. That’s up over 2 percent from its opening price of $894. Google has yet to break $900 a share until today, though it has continued to rise steadily in price over the past month.

Google is holding its famed developer conference this week with a three-hour long keynote starting at noon Eastern time. While we’ve heard rumors for weeks about what Google might talk about, investors are seemingly anticipating good things. There hasn’t been much speculation about a big hardware product, release, however.

Investors may be reacting to a new music streaming service that some rumors say may show up at the show, if not the overall fanfare. Reports indicate that Google recently signed two major music partnerships — one with Sony Music Group and another with Universal Music Group — that may give Google the boost it needs to launch a product similar to Spotify. With Spotify, customers can listen to the songs and bands of their choosing on a subscription basis, as opposed to an online radio company like Pandora, where customers can only choose a theme or genre of music to listen to.

Google has also been releasing its Google Glass headwear into the market in the weeks leading up to Google I/O, causing speculation that we’ll hear more about the product in Google’s keynote.

GOOG data by YCharts

Google I/O image via Dylan Tweney/VentureBeat

OpenCoin is a startup building a simple, global, open currency system. Today, the company announced it has an angel round of funding to expand the Ripple protocol, a virtual currency and payments system that allows “anyone in the world to trade any amount of money in any currency.”

“Our world has moved into a digital era, and it is time that we embrace a digital currency that can accommodate today’s global commerce needs while laying the groundwork for future evolution,” said OpenCoin CTO Jed McCaleb in a statement. “Now, wherever there is Internet, there is Ripple. The future is here.”

Ripples are a virtual currency. The Ripple network is a decentralized, open source, peer-to-peer payment network that enables free payments to merchants, consumers, and developers in any currency. According to the site, Ripple was invented by Bitcoin enthusiasts to update money for the Internet era. The system does not require ACH, banks, or credit card networks, and transactions are confirmed within seconds, there are no restrictions, minimum fees, or penalties, and the fees are “freeish,” at $0.0001 per transaction.

Money is digital and basically a number associated with an account that goes up and down depending on activity. Money is also often distributed across multiple accounts that require time, fees, and passwords to exchange. Since all the information on Ripple is kept within Ripple, it can avoid “the costs, delays, and inconveniences of system-hopping.” Money goes in and out of Ripple through the ‘Ripple gateway,’ which acts as a bridge to the outside economy. At the center is ‘The Ledger,’ which tracks every transaction, account, and balance.

Bitcoin has made the nature of currency, wealth, and trading a hot button discussion topic as the value of this purely electronic, nationless currency goes up and down, with the entire tech community breathlessly following its fluctuation. Bitcoins are not the only volatile forms of currency, however, as the Euro crisis has shown. Whether it is Bitcoin, US dollars, Japanese yen, or Euros, Ripple has created a hub at the center to simplify their exchange.

OpenCoin was founded by Chris Larsen, who founded E-LOAN and Prosper, and McCaleb, who worked on eDonkey and Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox. Andreessen Horowitz, FF Angel IV, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Vast Ventures, and Bitcoin Opportunity Fund participated in this round.

Photo Credit: mtsofan/Flickr

A 22-year-old currency trader is selling his grandparents’ house for as many Bitcoins as he can get his hands on.

Taylor More put the listing up for the family home (pictured above) in Alberta, Canada, several days ago. He told me that the property is worth about $395,000, according to a realtor appraisal.

“This is a good way to get in on the movement early,” he told me. “It’s the best way I could think of to get as many bitcoins as possible.” More is so passionate about the cyber currency that he is willing to negotiate or accept a partial payment.

Bitcoin is a cryptographically secure currency that operates without a central authority, unlike the dollar or yen. It is a favorite of the libertarian and hipster crowd, but it has gained some legitimacy, with sites WordPress.com offering updates in exchange for Bitcoins.

More has yet to receive any offers for the quaint 2-bedroom bungalow that sits on 2.9 acres and boasts mountain views. The problem is that only a handful of people have collected enough Bitcoins needed (between 5,500 and 7,000 depending on the highly fluctuating value) to purchase a house.

More claims this is the first time anyone has sold a house in exchange for Bitcoins.

He hopes to make a profit from the transaction in the short term. Stories of cybercurrency traders making real money by trading Bitcoins are increasingly common.

For this reason, coupled with the fact that there is no centralized authority, it’s considered by some to be the most dangerous project on the Internet.

More’s convinced that Bitcoin will be appealing, given the banking crisis in Europe. He references recent news that one of Cyprus’s largest banks is freezing ATM withdrawals.

He is also hoping the house sale will lure some of Bitcoin’s early adopters. The would-be entrepreneur is working on a project that involves “needing a lot of Bitcoins,” but More would not disclose any further details.

Tradehill cofounders Ryan Singer and Jered Kenna (L-R)

Bitcoin evangelists say that More isn’t crazy — and that the house sale is a strategic move for any financier.

Jered Kenna is one of the early proponents of the Bitcoin craze. Kenna announced this week that he would be relaunching TradeHill, a site that was one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges, but was shut down after being embroiled in a string of payments fraud charges.

Kenna said if the house sells, it would be an important milestone. “There are people who would buy it for bragging rights alone,” he said.

He continued, “In June of 2011, I called Bitcoin an experiment during an interview with the NY Observer and advised not to bet the house. Had he sold his house for Bitcoin then it would be worth $1.6 million today.”

Tradehill COO Ryan Singer advised that More should still use the normal broker approach to negotiating and documenting the transaction, as Bitcoin is just a settlement mechanism.

As for the grandparents in question, More told me they have recovered from the shock and are moving east to be closer to him. More’s father, a professional hockey player, owns the house and would be financially responsible if the bet doesn’t pay off.

“My family knows it’s for sale, but I’m going to give it some time before I throw this Bitcoin idea on them,” said More.

For more information, check out the house listing here.

Trading started at $9.25 and by midday surpassed $12 and expectations. Yesterday, SolarCity lowered the price of its IPO to $8, down from the $13-$15 range set in November, raising $92 million. Initially, it hoped to surpass $200 million in its IPO. 

The stock, however, took off. This is partly attributable to SolarCity chairman Elon Musk, along with fellow board member Draper Fisher Jurveston, indicating their intent to buy a significant portion of the shares.

Tech IPOs have had mixed results this year. Consumer tech companies like Facebook and Yelp saw their stock go down after their IPOs, while enterprise companies such as Palo Alto Networks and Workday fared well in the public market. But U.S. green tech companies have had a rough year in 2012. The Bloomberg Global Large Solar Index (BISOLAR) of 17 companies declined 36 percent in 2012 as a global oversupply pushed down prices for solar panels by 28 percent.

SolarCity, on the other hand, benefits from cheaper solar panels because it is a financier and leaser, rather than manufacturer. Current clients include Stanford University, Walmart, Ebay, the U.S. Armed Forces, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and Intel.

Shares debuted on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol SCTY. Underwriters for the deal include Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Needham & Company, and Roth Capital Partners.

Prior to the IPO, SolarCity raised a whopping $455 million in venture capital.

I’m not sure what it’s like to have “extra” money. Even if I did have cash left over to invest after rent, bills, and my travel-wine-and-shopping allotment, I wouldn’t know how. Should I ever manage to save a little nest egg, SprinkleBit can show me how to turn it into a souffle (that rises and rises).

SprinkleBit is a social virtual trading platform. Its mission is to empower individuals to build a strong stock portfolio by providing resources to help them make informed financial decisions. Today, the company has announced opening the digital doors to SprinkleBit University to further educate the novice investor.

On the site, aspiring day traders have access to a stock market simulator where they can get their feet wet without actually conducting transactions. Experienced investors can use the simulator to test out new strategies. There is also the “Major League Stocktrading,” a fantasy online trading league, and a social media component that lets newbies observe and learn from other traders’ actions. They can view portfolios, follow other investors, and see the motivation behind certain actions, as well as ask for tips and engage in discussion.

In addition to assistance with the nitty-gritty aspects of trading, crowd sourcing is also used to provide insight into the ever-changing stock market. Founder Alexander Wallin created the Voting Power Index (VPI) to serve as a virtual advisor for do-it-yourself traders. The technology analyzes data to produce a buy/sell signal for stocks, advising what stocks to trade at what times.

“During an investment class, I learned that at certain point, the crowd is always smarter than the smartest person in the room,” Wallin said. “I wanted to apply that to investing. With the VPI, we found that it is possible to create a portfolio that outperforms the S&P 500.”

Wallin developed the platform while working on a graduate degree at University of California, San Diego. His research found that 2 in 5 Americans give themselves a “C” or lower when it comes to investing, while 53% of investors feel social media helps them be more knowledgable. Furthermore, people aged 22-34 are taking more responsibility for their finances at a younger age and seeking a more collaborative approach.

SprinkleBit is geared towards these novice investors, which comprise 94% of its user base. The university will offer a curriculum with modules like “Finding Your Investment Objective” and “Understanding Risk”, as well as overviews of various sectors and industries.

“Students can then take what they have learned and apply their skills by trading on SprinkleBit’s virtual trading platform,” said Wallin. “This is a safe and entertaining place for investors to build and hone their trading skills using real-time market data. Once they have built up their confidence, they can start to put real money in the market seamlessly on our site.”

SprinkleBit does not currently offer actual brokerage, but secure online trading of equities, options, bonds, municipal securities, and mutual funds are coming in the next month. The company will also offer portfolio management tools. It was founded in 2011 when Wallin completed his research, and the current platform officially launched last month.

Souffle making and investing in the stock market actually have many things common. In both cases, intuition is as important as education and skill, and practice is no guarantee of perfection. There are literal ups and downs, and split seconds can mean the difference between success and failure.

Deal or not, plenty of Groupon insiders are opting to unload shares in their first opportunity since the company’s public debut, and they’re helping send Groupon’s share price tumbling to new lows Friday.

Groupon, which debuted on the NASDAQ in November, is trading down nearly 10 percent today, sinking to an all-time low of $9.53 a share at one point Friday. The dramatic drop-off can be attributed, at least in part, to an influx of roughly 600 million shares — or 93 percent of all outstanding shares — now available for trading thanks to the June 1 expiration of the stock’s lock-up period.

The volume of shares traded Friday at the time of this report is already nearly triple the number of shares traded Thursday.

Groupon insiders holding the 600 million shares, which include employees, executives, venture capitalists, and board members, were previously barred from trading their shares in a standard lock-up arrangement. These no-sale periods are meant to add stability to the stock of a newly traded company. Groupon elected to extend its lock-up from May 2 to June 1 following the disastrous revision of its fourth quarter earnings.

The daily deals company’s stock has been struggling on the public market ever since its debut, and the company was punished especially hard by Wall Street after the restated report in March. A strong first quarter 2012 earnings report of $559 million in revenue and $33.9 million in operating income and recent strategic acquisitions in the local commerce space, however, were helping the stock recover a tad in recent weeks.

Brokerage firm Sterne Agee even upgraded Groupon to a buy and gave the company a 12-month target price of $20 (the original IPO price) following the Q1 2012 earnings report. With the current share price at half the IPO price, many insiders, including Mason and co-founders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky, were not expected to sell their shares today.

But considering the stock’s drop-off Friday, it would seem that insiders are either concerned about Groupon’s future or the market’s reaction to consumer Internet companies and are happy to take what they can get.

GRPN data by YCharts

Photo credit: swanksalot/Flickr

Groupon is being investigated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority after the company’s stock made a sharp, upward turn Monday, before earnings beating expectations were delivered at the close of business that same day.

Finra, which watches for oddities within the market, was tipped off to strange Groupon activity when the company’s stock soared 18.5 percent with no real cause, according to the Wall Street Journal‘s sources. This is a big spike for the company, and came shortly before it released a favorable earnings report to investors that evening. Sixteen million shares were bought and sold, when only four million have been traded within the last month.

Given the earnings report, which put Groupon at $559.3 million in revenue, and which beat analyst expectations by 29.3 million, it sounds like information was somehow leaked. The Journal reports that Finra is considering handing the investigation over the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Groupon has been involved in a number of other snafus during its road to and eventual IPO. The company’s Executive Chairman Eric Lefkofsky reportedly broke its quiet period saying the company was going to be “wildly profitable.” Later, Groupon’s chief executive Andrew Mason was investigated regarding an e-mail he sent to employees prior to the IPO, which was cause for quiet-period-concern. The company was also influenced to revise a weird accounting metric in its IPO filing that showed operating costs without including marketing costs. After its fourth quarters 2011 earnings report, Groupon also had to readjust its earnings to reflect less revenue that it had originally reported.

via The Wall Street Journal; Image via swanksalot/Flickr

Craigslist may be on the smartphone already, but Fribi wants to kick the classified-ads space up a notch using the power of Facebook, coupons, and the cameras on our mobile-devices.

“Fribi is like a more personal twist to Craigslist, making the service more personal, relevant, safe and fun,” said chief executive officer and co-founder Morten Isachsen in an email to VentureBeat.

Fribi (pronounced free-bee) is a mobile, local-focused marketplace that allows you to sell and trade your unwanted items. So, yeah, Craigslist. But to set itself apart from the giant elephant in the room, Fribi hopes to offer a speeder listing process, social integration, and offers from businesses right within the app.

To list an item, you take a picture with your smartphone’s camera, assign a title, description, and a few other details, and upload. You can decide who can see the listing (only friends or public) as well as how long the listing will stay live. Like Craigslist, you can search specific neighborhoods and items, though Fribi lets you connect the app to Facebook and see friends who are posting items. If a friend interacts with an item through the social network, Fribi will automatically show the interaction in the app. Isachsen says Twitter integration will be coming soon.

Fribi has an opportunity to monetize as well, allowing local businesses to run deals and offers in the app.

Other services are doing similar things, however. Poshmark allows users to take photos of clothing they no longer want with their phones and upload a listing to the app. These are then sold through “Posh Parties,” or mini-mobile-trunk-shows. TradePal also lets you buy, sell or trade items with people around you, however this is done off the mobile phone and on a regular website. Inevitably, Craigslist will also be a big competitor for Fribi, given how many people already use and (mostly) trust the service.

Not to mention eBay, though it is on a much bigger, less localized scale than Fribi.

The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Oslo, Norway. Isachsen does say the startup will be moving its operations to Palo Alto, Calif. So far Fribi has not taken on any funding.

[Update, the Sage Panel following the presentation assessed how Fribi came off on stage. Jolie O'Dell, a writer at VentureBeat and moderator of the panel, noted that the pursuit of a better shopping and selling site than Craig's List is a good idea. But Dana Stalder, a general partner at Matrix Partners (also on the Sage panel), said it will be very hard to overcome the "network effect" advantage that Craig's List has, even if its features aren't as good as another site's. He said he desperately wants to find entrepreneurs that can do that.

Jason Krikorian, general partner at DCM and another member of the Sage panel, said that the app was really well executed.]

Fribi is one of 80 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2012 event taking place this week in Silicon Valley. After we make our selections, the chosen companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.

Co-founders Mikaal Abdulla and Mathias Helleu created 8 Securities after working at E*Trade’s global division. They took their online investing knowledge with them from E*Trade and created a competing product that they feel is easier to use than other services out there.

8 Securities wants to make investing easier for people who don’t have a stock-trading background. Account holders are given a customizable space in the app (shown above) with widgets that display trading information, graphs, videos, and stock tickers. From your space, or “financial dashboard” as the company calls it, you can watch stock trading prices, research trading techniques, and purchase or sell stocks on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, and American Stock Exchange.

The dashboard is cutesy and simple, to not overwhelm the average person trying to get into investing. 8 Securities also offers an open API to encourage developers to create new widgets and integrate other services into the service.

Beyond investment information and trading, 8 Securities is trying to inject social media into its service. You can connect with friends and other investors through Facebook, Twitter, and Google Chat. The hope is that you will connect with other investors near you and get advice on investment decisions.

Because the company is based in Hong Kong, it has a special focus on Asian investors. According to the company, investing in Asian stock markets can be difficult for the average person because there are a lot of barriers to overcome, so its tried to make it as easy as possible for the average person to buy and sell stock.

8 Securities use of the number eight is also a nod to its focus on Asian investors. The number eight is related to prosperity and wealth in Chinese culture. Its uses the number eight in its name, charges an 0.18 percent fee for trading Hong Kong stocks and an $8.88 fee for U.S stocks, and has raised $8 million in funding.

8 Securities is hoping to be a simpler alternative to the more complex investing portals currently out there that cater to savvy investors. The company competes with other online investment services such as E*Trade, StockTwits, and Scottrade.

The company closed an $8 million dollar round from Velocity Capital B.V. and Full Global Investments in January 2012. 8 Securities debuted at TechCrunch Disrupt in October 2011.

The NYSE has dueled with the NASDAQ stock market to attract high-profile tech IPOs, but it’s traditionally been a losing battle as the NASDAQ stock market regularly plays host to the largest tech companies in the world like Google and Apple. Zynga is easily the largest IPO planned this year, with the company already profitable.

But recent high-profile tech IPOs indicate that the NYSE is getting a foothold with tech companies. The NYSE nabbed Chinese social networking site Renren last month. Pandora, an online radio station and another high-profile tech IPO this year, also said it would list its shares on the NYSE. Business social network LinkedIn also listed on the NYSE and had one of the most successful IPOs this year so far.

Zynga’s filing also added new information that shows its top three games on Facebook have traditionally accounted for a majority of its revenue. The top three existing games for the company accounted for 93 percent, 83 percent, 78 percent and 59 percent of the company’s online game revenue in 2008, 2009, 2010 and for the six months ended June 30, 2011, respectively. Right now that’s FarmVille, CityVille and FrontierVille, which bring in $76.6 million, $46.6 million and $70.5 million respectively.

Zynga has built its social games business on Facebook, and it currently has more than 250 million monthly active users, according to AppData.

The company on Tuesday unveiled 10 new games as well as “Zynga Direct,” an initiative that includes distribution methods for its games outside of Facebook. Project Z, the first part of that initiative, is a separate website that uses Facebook connect to send players directly to Zynga games without having to go through Facebook’s main website.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Trigger-happy investors have historically been prone to trading on Apple whenever news about its head honcho, Steve Jobs, arose. But in the wake of his death yesterday, shares of Apple have only risen 1.5 percent as of 7:30 a.m. today, only dropping 0.12 percent at their lowest level from the company’s opening price.

Apple, the most valuable technology company in the world, is back to vying with Exxon-Mobil to claim the title of most valuable company overall, although it’s value fell on Tuesday when the company unveiled an incremental upgrade to its iPhone smartphone lineup instead of a much-anticipated major upgrade.

Apple is also noticeably absent from the options market, where a move like this would typically send traders into a frenzy of speculation over what direction the company will go in. Only two significant put orders (a bet that the company’s share price will fall) crossed the Chicago Board Options Exchange as of 7 a.m. Thursday — each for fewer than 700 shares and at a modest strike price. At the same time, a much larger call order has already crossed the wire at a strike price of $385.

“This is business as usual for Apple, it would be a mistake to count them out,” Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg told VentureBeat. “Yes, the tech world has lost a significant icon and a visionary, but Apple is more than just one person — Jobs built something truly special that was much greater than himself.”

Jobs was known as a visionary, creating products that he knew people would be fighting tooth and nail to get their hands on. They were products you didn’t even know you needed: the tablet market was basically non-existent before the introduction of the iPad, and the iPhone is now one of the most popular smartphones in the world and is an industry standard. Jobs arguably jump-started the smartphone revolution with the iPhone and its associated App Store. ”It’s a phone, it’s an iPod, and it’s an Internet communicator — are you getting it yet?” he said on stage when he unveiled the iPhone.

His track record is undeniable. As VentureBeat’s Dylan Tweney wrote yesterday, “The Macintosh was the first commercially successful computer to use a graphical user interface and a mouse, a decade after the technologies had debuted at Xerox PARC and SRI. The iPhone threw out the book on how to make a smartphone and reoriented an entire industry around touchscreens and apps, well after touchscreens first appeared in PDAs like the PalmPilot. The iPad succeeded in making a popular tablet computer after Windows-based computer manufacturers had tried to do so for nearly a decade.”

Apple regularly smashes expectations for its quarterly performance and its press events are almost Hollywood-esque, with live reporting and glamour. In Silicon Valley, working for Apple — like Google, Twitter and others — is worn as a badge of honor, like attending an Ivy League school.

“There are few people who could build something so successful and so magical and do more than (Jobs,)” Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian told me. “It’s humbling as an entrepreneur, more than anything else, to see what he’s done.”

As of market close, the NASDAQ composite index was down nearly 7 percent for the day. This comes on the first day of trading after market analysis firm Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S.’s debt rating, implying that the country is slightly less trustworthy as an investment.

That has sent major tech stocks — and recently minted IPOs — into a tailspin, even more than the rest of the market. Fresh faces on the market like business social network LinkedIn are performing much worse than other tech stocks, which has raised concerns over whether it’s still safe to file for an initial public offering.

“I don’t think anyone has a good answer on that yet, it’s too raw and too new,” Deutsche Bank communications technology analyst Jonathan Goldberg told VentureBeat. “In general, market conditions are going to make it hard for any IPO to come out.”

IPOs stumble

The past six months have seen a number of high-profile trading debuts from the likes of business social network LinkedIn and cloud music provider Pandora. Social games maker Zynga and group-buying site Groupon also filed to go public, and both are looking to raise massive amounts of cash. But those companies were riding a wave of positive sentiment that has bolstered IPOs.

LinkedIn’s trading debut in June went extremely well, but the company that once had a market cap of more than $10 billion has seen more than $4 billion in value wiped out in three days of trading. The company is now trading at around $80 and has a market cap of $5.6 billion. That’s still well above the valuation of $4 billion it claimed when it priced the shares of its initial public offering between $42 and $45.

“People have very high expectations of growth, with the market looking the way it does, things with high growth tend to get beat up worse,” Goldberg said.

Goldberg said he couldn’t comment on specific IPOs — like upcoming stars Groupon and Zynga — but he said a lot of investors were viewing venture-backed companies as risky and were wiping risk off their portfolios. Each company that has made its trading debut in the past 6 months has seen significant drops of more than 5 percent.

Here’s a quick breakdown of some of the latest tech companies, which have made their trading debuts, that are tripping up amidst the chaos. Each line shows how much the company is down today, as of this writing.

LinkedIn (Debut: May 19) — $75.16, down 18 percent

Zipcar (Debut: April 14) — $21.59, down 10 percent

Renren (Debut: May 4) — $6.75, down 11 percent

Pandora (Debut: June 15) — $12.55, down 7 percent

Zillow (Debut: July 20) — $26.17, down 7 percent

Fusion-io (Debut: June 9) — $24.78, down 5 percent

Upcoming IPOs may encounter stronger headwinds given the market conditions. For example, in July Zynga filed to go public, hoping to raise up to $1 billion at an expected valuation between $10 billion and $20 billion. It made around $90 million in 2010 and $11.8 million in the first quarter this year. Despite that strong performance, investors may still prove skittish. Groupon isn’t looking quite as rosy, with significant losses in its first operating year.

It’s now unclear whether the IPO window has closed, and for how long, Goldberg said. That might make the upcoming trading debuts for Zynga and Groupon a little less appealing for investors. It could also scare companies away from going public any time soon, such as discovery site Yelp — which has said it planned to go public sometime later this year.

Tech hammered

Tech stocks have typically been able to weather major hits on the stock market. But major tech companies that have a lot of international business are now exposed to market weaknesses thanks to growing concerns in Europe over a mounting debt crisis.

“Most of the big internet names are well diversified geographically, with Google, Amazon, and eBay all having just over 50 percent of sales outside the U.S.,” Macquarie Securities analyst Ben Schachter told VentureBeat. “Typically, this diversification is a positive, but with rising concerns about European macroeconomic issues, these stocks are being penalized.”

Tech bellwethers drops were in line with drops in the Nasdaq and S&P 500. Consumer electronics supergiant Apple fell 6 percent while enterprise tech provider and computer manufacturer Dell was down 7 percent. Online retailer Amazon was down 4 percent while search giant Google was down more than 6 percent.

Chip manufacturer Intel, whose technology is included in a lot of modern electronics, was nearly flat. That’s because consumer spending likely wouldn’t be impacted in the short term thanks to healthy demand for smartphones from the likes of Apple and Google,  Parks Associate analyst Kurt Scherf told VentureBeat.

“Over the short-term, we’re not seeing an impact, since consumer spending is still quite good for areas such as smartphones, tablets, and even more durable goods such as HDTVs,” Scherf said. “It’s what would happen with a spike in interest rates and a longer-term cap on spending that would be worrisome.”

The uncertainty in the market has sent investors fleeing to safer options like U.S. treasuries and gold.

Despite the recent drops, things are still better than they were back in 2008 when the markets initially experienced a broad sell-off, Goldberg said.

“Most of the people I know, they say the economy is terrible but it’s not worse than it was a month ago or six months ago,” Goldberg said. “But anybody who says they know what’s going to happen is lying.”

[Photo: Dannels]

VentureBeat lead writer Dean Takahashi contributed to this report.

Stock market investors are in a bloodbath. But technology stocks in the past few months have been relatively protected. There was even talk of a “bubble.” Now, recent market activity has sent investors running from equities into safer investments like treasuries.

So what does this mean for upcoming big IPOs like Zynga and Groupon or even Yelp, which is expected to file for an IPO sometime later this year?

A broad sell-off

Concerns about rapidly rising debt in Europe and the United States sent markets into a tailspin, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index falling more than 9 percent this week.

The Nasdaq fell through a key level of “support,” a measure that traders use when designing algorithmic trades. Once the index value falls below that level of support, it sends a signal to many algorithms to sell off stocks and prevent the loss of additional money invested in equities. The same is true for levels of “resistance,” which send signals to algorithms to stop buying stocks due to risk.

“A technical break on the Nasdaq would suggest further downside than upside,” Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey told VentureBeat. “The fear is that we’re approaching a recessionary environment. The consumer is less optimistic on the future. That can hurt discretionary items like games.”

That’s the “technical” side. Then there’s the more human side, where investors may shun algorithms altogether and seek to invest in cash or safer areas with less risk than technology stocks. More on that in a sec.

The Nasdaq previously held support at around 2,620, while the market found levels of resistance at around 2,880. Yesterday’s massive sell-off broke the technical level of support on the Nasdaq. That sent tech stocks into a tailspin, with the Nasdaq closing down 1 percent today at 2,532 and reaching as low as 2,465 at one point. Another major index watched by investors, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, held steady.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 4 percent on Thursday, and the week’s sell-off wiped out about $3.5 trillion of market value by the end of trading on Friday. The broad sell-off ignited further fears of a double-dip recession as investors fled equities and scrambled to lock in definitive returns on investments — sending options activity to record levels for the year.

Recent IPOs

With investors bailing out of equities, the market could be more skittish toward impending high-profile initial public offerings. Both Groupon and Zynga have filed to go public to raise enormous amounts of money, and are set to make their debut in the near future. But concerns about a slowdown in the economy, thanks to roundabout debt talks, might lighten the appetite for those IPOs.

LinkedIn’s trading debut in June went extremely well, but the company that once had a market cap of more than $10 billion has seen more than $1 billion in value wiped out in two days. The company is now trading at around $91 and has a market cap of $8.6 billion. That’s still well above the valuation of $4 billion it claimed when it priced the shares of its initial public offering between $42 and $45.

Cloud music provider Pandora might provide another clue to LinkedIn’s woes: That company had a relatively mellow debut in public trading, but it ended the week at a higher position than what it held before Thursday’s broad sell-off. The company opened trading at $13.19 a share on Thursday, and ended that day at $13.56. It ended trading Friday at $13.48. That company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, where trading was a little more steady.

Priceline — one of the broad market’s largest gainers — was up nearly 10 percent after its quarterly profit exceeded Wall Street expectations. Market analytics provider ComScore’s shares were also up nearly 10 percent. Shares of domain provider Web.com, which announced it would acquire Network Solutions, were also up 15 percent.

Bellwether consumer hardware providers fell for the most part, with iPhone manufacturer Apple down around 1 percent. Microsoft, which manufactures the Xbox 360 alongside its Windows software, fell 1 percent. Chip-maker Intel edged down slightly with a 0.3 percent decline. Dell, a provider of hardware for enterprises, edged up 0.4 percent when trading ended Friday.

What about Zynga?

Zynga has become a Facebook distribution powerhouse like no other game company. The company has delivered hit after hit to Facebook. It filed to go public, hoping to raise up to $1 billion at an expected valuation between $10 billion and $20 billion, in July and it made around $90 million in 2010 and $11.8 million in the first quarter this year.

The company was hoping to ride a wave of positive sentiment led by LinkedIn and Pandora after those companies picked up multi-billion dollar valuations when they went public.

But game stocks were down at least 1 percent across the board. Saints Row developer THQ Interactive was the worst performer after falling nearly 6 percent, while publishing supergiant Electronic Arts fell by about one percent. Those companies revolve around delivering cinematic triple-A titles like Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Those games still carry large price tags, which would give social and online gaming companies the edge.

“The casual market of social networking and mobile, that sort of potential is still strong,” Hickey said. “In a down market, social is gonna do really well.”

Blizzard Entertainment, owned by holding company Activision-Blizzard, also has one of the largest online games in the world and generates an enormous amount of revenue from its digital distribution. Those games are typically resistant to recessions because they use subscriber models and the company regularly releases new content and it doesn’t require players to pay an upfront $60 for a game.

“Amid a friggin’ global meltdown, World of Warcraft actually grew its subscriber base,” Hickey said. “It’s incredibly resilient to weak economic periods.”

Games like World of Warcraft also have value-added services that Blizzard Entertainment can charge for, like switching servers and buying additional cosmetic items for a character. That helps the company generate additional revenue from its games, along with digitally distributing its games at a price lower than typical brick-and-mortar game store prices, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter told VentureBeat.

But the strong performance of World of Warcraft wasn’t enough to keep the company’s share price afloat this week. Activision-Blizzard fell 1 percent in trading on Friday and ended the week down around 5 percent despite posting strong results on Wednesday.

Investment titan Goldman Sachs, which has been working with Facebook since January, is seeking to manage the offering. In January, Goldman valued Facebook at $50 billion.

Anonymous sources in the report suggest Facebook will be prompted to file by next spring because of the SEC’s 500 investor rule, which limits the number of investors a private company can have before having to publicly disclose its finances. Since Facebook will likely reach more than 500 investors this year, the company would have to disclose its data by April 30, 2012.

Other social websites have made waves in the investment community during the last few months. Group deals site Groupon filed for a $750 million IPO earlier this month and will likely start trading publicly later this year. With its new funds, the company intends to continue spending aggressively and experiment with new products.

Professional social networking site LinkedIn began trading publicly in mid-May and was valued at $7 billion. LinkedIn priced its initial shares at $45 and the price quickly rose to about $80 on the same day. LinkedIn shares currently sit at around $76.

It’s impossible to know the exact schedule for Facebook’s IPO filing, but we know the company intends to start trading publicly in 2012. But we’ll certainly let you know if we hear any more IPO news on the ever-changing Facebook front.

Currensee

Currensee considers itself a social network for traders to share and collaborate around daily trading activities. The company has a host of trading tools to help make informed trade decisions, including RSS feeds, instant messaging and Facebook widgets as well as a trader leader-board, which ranks investors based on performance.

The company recently launched what it calls the “Trade Leaders Investment Program,” which allows anyone to follow and automatically copy investments from top traders in the network. It’s a valuable program if the company wants to move outside of educated and professional traders to a broader market, which may be the case, as more than $3 billion in volume has been traded through the program, according to the company.

Almost a year ago, the company appeared to be experiencing rapid growth, with more than 1 million trades and 5,000 members in just 6 months. Since then, the company has close to 3 million trades, which would put it on pace since the launch. However, the total member count is just 8,000, which may explain the new investment program and expanding sales team.

StockTwits appears to be the company’s closest competition, offering a social community, or network, of investors and traders with the ability to follow each other, exchange ideas and get input for planning their next trade.

The Boston-based company, founded in 2008, previously secured a second round of funding for $8.8 million from from North Bridge Venture Partners, Egan-Managed Capital and Vernon & Park Capital. All three venture capital firms participated in this latest round.

The study tracked three brands, Starbucks, Coca Cola and Nike, over the course of 10 months in 2010-2011. The number of Facebook fans, Twitter followers and Youtube views were used as measures of each brand’s social media popularity. This data was tracked against daily stock price movements for each of these companies, relative to an index of consumer stocks (which reflects how well the stock market is doing in general) and keyword search trend data (the number of searches for “Starbucks” reflects general public interest in the brand and should show spikes due to major announcements).

Although the fortunes of the three brands varied considerably over the course of the study, e.g. Starbuck’s stock price climbed 24 percent while Coke’s declined by 6 percent, a correlation was found between daily popularity and stock price, even when a 10- or a 30-day lag was introduced into the study, suggesting that social media popularity may be a lead indicator of stock price performance.

This study only looked at a very small number of brands and the indices used to track stock market performance, and public interest might not be sufficient to separate the influence of social media popularity from other factors. However, traders are increasingly taking techniques like sentiment analysis (another measure of a brand’s standing with consumers and media) seriously.

Reuters’ trading dashboard uses text and sentiment analysis from Lexanalytics to track news on 20,000 stocks and commodities. Text analysis determines the meaning of a block of text, while sentiment analysis determines the mood or tone of the text and how positive or negative it is, e.g. a very positive review of a new product. This data is now being used as actionable input for algorithmic trading, automated trading software that accounts for up to 50 percent of trades in the U.S.

I recently talked to Rochester Cahan, Vice President of  Global Equity Quantitative Strategy at Deutsche Bank about the usage of text and sentiment analysis in trading. His team advises fund managers on trading strategy and has been experimenting with the Reuters service. According to Cahan, the amount of relevant data available on a stock is becoming impossibly large for a human trader to process. To be used by a trading system, the massive amounts of unstructured text containing information relevant to a stock need to be summarized into a simple number (or numbers). This is where text and sentiment analysis scoring come in.

Multiple news sources are analyzed for particular words, tone, relevance and freshness, e.g. the latest news reporting that Apple will not support NFC in the iPhone 5. If there is a statistical relationship between a stock price rise and similar news in the past, then the trading system will buy.

Cahan told me that he has seen significant improvements in trading performance when the text and sentiment scores are used as trading inputs. In addition, the scores were uncorrelated with existing trading signals, i.e. they provide new information to the trading system.

The most positive sentiment levels are not necessarily the most useful for trading. When, let’s say, Apple announces the iPad to almost universal media euphoria, the stock price reacts very quickly so it’s difficult to take advantage of the information. However, stocks with moderate positive sentiments tend to be overlooked by the market and make good buys.