There are certain trends or threads which seem to me to be running through the technology news and markets currently, but perhaps that’s just due to the tint of the glasses through which I view the world. There is a lot of activity in the financial markets, both public and private, pertaining to technology and internet companies both domestic and abroad. An indication, no doubt, of corporate coffers being flush with cash and multiyear highs in stock prices.

The big news of the week in the M&A world for the public markets is the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft (MSFT) for $8.5 billion cash, a deal that places a valuation on Skype that has analysts and investors scratching their heads and Microsoft shareholders more than just a little angry. Microsoft indeed seems to have overpaid for the largest acquisition they have ever made. Past large acquisitions (think aQuantive) by Microsoft haven’t worked out very well. While Skype enjoys a very large user base of some 170 million customers, relatively few of them pay for the service and the company is not profitable. This has the smell of a bit of desperation on the part of Microsoft to try to keep up with the growing popularity of Apple’s (ticker AAPL) Facetime video-chat service and Google’s (ticker GOOG) Voice. There is a multitude of other, smaller deals taking place as evidenced by the acquisition of Cryptography Research by Rambus (RMBS) in a cash and stock deal that values Cryptography Research at $342.5 million and the acquisition of privately held Icera by Nvidia (NVDA) for $367 million, an all cash deal reported in a post dated May 10, 2011.

Much is also happening in the IPO arena and the venture capital community. The IPO of LinkledIn is fast approaching, the debut of the publicly traded shares is scheduled for May 19 and will trade under the ticker symbol of LNKD on the New York Stock Exchange. Initial pricing is targeted at $32-35 per share with an overall valuation for the company of slightly over $3 billion. The company is considered a pioneer among highly regarded social-networking sites to go public, meaning there aren’t any true comparisons to gauge the company’s value. Although, one possible example may be the recent debut of Renren (ticker RENN), considered by some to be the “Facebook of China”. While the IPO of Renren was initially successful just in the past couple of weeks with a brief surge in price, its stock price has now slipped below the opening price on the day of its debut.

However, the decline in the stock price of Renren may have more to do with investor concerns about the lack of transparency in Chinese financial reporting and operations than valuation considerations. Further evidence fueling such concerns is the recent and ongoing dispute between Yahoo (YHOO) and Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba (Yahoo holds a 40% stake in Alibaba) detailed in a post dated May 13, 2011, in which Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. disputed claims by its largest shareholder, Yahoo Inc., that the company had transferred ownership of its online payment unit, Alipay, to a separate entity without knowledge or approval of its board or shareholders.

Valuations being assigned to social media and social networking companies, driven by the trading of shares of companies such as Facebook, Zynga, Twitter, and Groupon in the private markets, have become so high that there is concern among many in the investment and venture capital communities of a bubble, since all bubbles eventually burst. Certainly, taking advantage of such valuations are no small factor in the desire of outfits like LinkedIn and Renren to cash in by going public.

And almost as certain is the role such valuations are playing in the nascent adjustments occurring in the activities and investments of some venture capital firms, as noted in a post dated May 11, 2011. Some venture capital firms are profiting, or attempting to do so, by buying shares of later stage private companies in the private markets, as opposed to their traditional business model of making relatively smaller investments in earlier stage start ups and then nurturing and guiding them to grow and develop in preparation for an eventual sale or IPO. An excellent current example of this type of investment activity by VC firms, and the potential gains from such, is the windfall enjoyed by AndreessenHorowitz (see post dated May 11), whose $50 million private investment in Skype made in 2009 is now worth some $250 million on the announcement of the Skype deal this past week by Microsoft. Andreessen Horowitz last month raised an additional $200 million to continue doing big, late-stage deals and purchasing of shares of established firms in the private markets.