Twitter

Unless you're ultra-wealthy or willing to chance the vagaries of the secondary markets, you can't invest yet in hot social networking companies like Facebook, Zynga or Groupon. But soon there may be an alternative: a new fund called NeXt BDC Capital that will take stakes in top-quality venture-backed firms like those.

Financial stories to think about over the weekend: A look at gold from a very different perspective; the 10 companies expected to be the most profitable in 2011; and Quora's growing popularity.

Among Thursday's top online stories for investors: 12 semiconductor stocks that could really run in 2011; why Facebook won't go public; and how Quora is quickly overtaking twitter.

A broad array of technology news helped define 2010, from the launch of Apple's iPad to the arrival of the app to a supernova of Internet stock gains. Here's a look back at those major stories -- and a glimpse of some highlights you can expect next year.

Wilson is known as the dean of New York City venture capitalists, an emerging community that has tracked nicely with the rapid uptick in startups in the Big Apple. Now, the word is out that he's raising a new $200 million seed-stage venture fund. Here's why.

The biggest names in social networking -- Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and LinkedIn -- haven't yet gone public, but their stock does get traded by the very rich on private exchanges. Now, some of those transactions have raised the interest of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

That's the value a $200 million venture investment led by Kleiner Perkins this week implies. But that means Twitter would have a price-to-sales ratio of 840 compared to Facebook's 26 -- or Google's 8.7. And Twitter's growth may be stalling.