Over the past year, there has been a surge in social-media companies going public. Our Social Stock Tracker, which covers stocks such as Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA), LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) and Pandora (NYSE:P), has a market value of more than $34 billion.

No doubt, many entrepreneurs want a piece of the action, including Ron Gutman.  A year ago, he created a social network called HealthTap.

IPO Playbook interviewed Gutman recently. Here are some excerpts: Read 

According to media buzz, it looks like Facebook’s IPO may fetch a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion. At least, that’s the implied figure based on the trading on SharesPost — which allows private investors to buy shares in pre-IPO companies. Facebook’s market value is now on the high end of that range, at $98 billion, or roughly 27 times revenues.

That’s actually down a bit from $102.6 billion, from about a week before). And yes, that would mean Facebook is now worth more than ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT).

Because investors in secondary markets are subject to an IPO’s lock-up provisions, this generally prevents them from selling stock within six months of a public offering. So, these buyers are really betting that Facebook will achieve a much higher valuation, such as $120 billion or more. Read 

After raising $700 million in its IPO in December, Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN) has quickly put the money to work, striking a variety of acquisitions, such as for Adku and Mertado.com. These early-stage companies are in hot categories like social networking and “Big Data” (which leverages huge amounts of user data to personalize web experiences). And just this past week, Groupon struck two new deals.

One was for Hyperpublic, which develops technology that makes it easier for users to find the right places to buy things by analyzing real-time data from social networks. The other deal was for Kima Labs, a San Francisco-based company that develops applications for mobile shopping. Kima Labs has a strong team that includes people who have worked at companies like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Pelago (which developed a location-based social network called Whrrl).

Groupon realizes that its core technology lags other hot companies like Facebook, LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) and Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA), so it is moving aggressively to bolster things, such as with establishing a development office in Silicon Valley. Read 

There was only one IPO last week, but it turned out to be a strong one:  Brightcove (NASDAQ:BCOV) pulled off a 30% return. The company is a top player in cloud-based video services.

O.K, so what can we expect for the coming week? Unfortunately, IPO activity will remain light. In fact, there are only two deals on tap: cloud company Bazaarvoice and Proto Labs, which manufactures custom parts for prototyping.

Of these, Bazaarvoice is likely to be the hot deal. The company has a sophisticated platform that helps companies manage social media by analyzing the buzz from online reviews, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and so on.  With advertising becoming saturated, companies are trying to find ways to enhance word-of-mouth marketing. Read 

Last week, the Social Stock Tracker lost 1.1%, giving the index a total market value of $34.6 billion. Only two stocks were up: LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) and Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN). The worst performer was Angie’s List (NASDAQ:ANGI), which was off by over 9%.

During the past week, Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA) released its first earnings report as a public company. Revenues soared 59% to $311.2 million and earnings came to 5 cents per share — the numbers were strong, though only in line with Wall Street expectations. Read 

The cloud is a technology that leverages Internet technologies to deliver business applications. It’s been a huge trend and has sparked major acquisitions, such as from SAP (NYSE:SAP) and Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL).

The IPO market also is getting into the action. Jive (NASDAQ:JIVE), which developed a Facebook-like platform for the enterprise, came public late last year, and the stock price is up about 35% so far. And this week, we saw another cloud company go public: Brightcove (NASDAQ:BCOV). In today’s trading, the stock is up 33%.

Brightcove operates a system that allows for the management and distribution of videos. It boasts 3,872 clients, which include biggies like Macy’s (NYSE:M), Honda (NYSE:HMC) and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC). Read