Zynga chief executive officer Mark Pincus, unlike the heads of many young technology companies, is an experienced veteran of the technology sector, and even of the IPO market.

The 45-year-old Pincus first came to Silicon Valley in the mid-1990s at the forefront of the dot-com era. He founded two different online companies, one of which was ultimately sold and the other of which became a major investing force in the industry.

Even as he led these companies to substantial success, he also created tension within the companies, drawing the ire of his board of directors at one point. However, the experience offered Pincus experience in negotiating that secured him an investment in Zynga from Google and, eventually, the strong support of Facebook as a feature of the massive social networking platform.

Pincus’ earlier experiences also left him with a drive to retain control of his company, however, and Reuters reports that a special class of stocks provide him with 37 percent of voting power in the company, roughly 70 times that of the common stock being sold at the company’s upcoming IPO.

Initial public offerings are always an uncertain investment to an extent, with companies often going public without a long-proven track record of success, sometimes looking for the funds necessary to keep the company going. The 2011 IPO market has not proven any easier, with many companies canceling or delaying their IPOs over the summer as the global economy suffered a downturn with both the U.S. and Europe struggling through debt crises.

Ultimately many analysts and even companies have found themselves looking from one high-profile IPO to the next, hoping that it would perform well and provide some encouraging signs for investors. Most recently, daily deals site Groupon completed a $700 million IPO, but it quickly followed the same pattern of most other companies this year and slumped below its early trading prices.

But Forbes reports that online gaming company Zynga, the creator of popular mobile and Facebook games like FarmVille and Words with Friends, stands a strong chance of surviving where many others have not. Valuing itself at $7 billion, Zynga has set far more modest goals than some recent IPOs and actually manages to back it up with a well-established business model that has already managed to make substantial profit – $30 million on $829 million of revenue over the past nine months.

Indeed, Bloomberg reports that Zynga announced on Thursday, December 8, that the company already has enough orders to cover the sizable portion of shares it intends to sell – 14 percent of common stocks, well more than many recent IPOs – at a price range of $8.50 to $10 per share.

Bloomberg notes that Zynga has given itself a substantially larger price-to-sales ratio than some of its primary competitors, but this still compares favorably with other IPOs seen so far this year.

Meanwhile, The Chicago Tribune reports that Zynga founder and chief executive officer Mark Pincus claimed at a luncheon in Boston that his company could reasonably double the number of players who actually pay for the company’s games. At present, paying customers account for only 3 percent of the 6.7 million players of Zynga games.

Investors are likely to remain wary after a bed that saw collapses from essentially every major IPO, but Zynga nonetheless offers as much promise of a spark as any of those earlier entrants held.

The Associated Press reports that Verizon, one of Google’s key allies in the mobile sphere, has decided not to include the company’s new Google Wallet function in its latest smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Verizon was integral in the promotion of Android-based phones as an alternative to iPhones, but the company has been slow to warm up to the Wallet app, which is designed to allow users to attach virtual “credit cards” to the phone and pay by simply tapping the phone on a type of reader.

Verizon noted potential security concerns with the new system, but the company’s reticence to adopt the technology likely stems at least in part with its place in ISIS, a group of telecommunications companies that are hoping to create their own mobile payments system.

The only phone currently allowing the use of Google Wallet is run through Sprint, which is not a part of ISIS. The Los Angeles Times notes that the move to block Google Wallet is particularly surprising given that the Galaxy Nexus was designed specifically to have such capabilities.

In advance of the release of the iPad last year, Apple completed contracts with several major global publishers to allow the Apple store to sell many popular e-books. Unlike traditional contracts, Apple arranged to allow the publishers to set the ultimate sale price, rather than simply agreeing on a wholesale price and leaving the rest to individual retailers.

The European Commission has grown concerned that such a policy could lead to a decline in competition between retailers, though it stopped short of claiming the companies breached anti-trust regulations.

Others, however, have already made such claims, with one lawsuit in the U.S. alleging that Apple collaborated with publishers to raise prices in order to boost profits and put pressure on other e-book retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, according to Computerworld.

Underwriters are the banks responsible for judging the interest in an IPO, helping to corral investors and set the initial offering price. Groupon, the latest major online company to go public, ultimately made use of 14 banks as underwriters, while Google had 10 during its IPO in 2004.

However, finance chief David Ebersman has suggested that underwriters might not be necessary for an IPO of such scale as Facebook, and the company has already begun some of the ground work of speaking with investors to rally interest.

Though banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley could still see a role in the sale, the Journal suggests that the company could follow a model similar to Google’s, which slashed its IPO fees by nearly 30 percent using an electronic auction based on the model created by WR Hambrecht + Co.

The Chicago Tribune notes that the underwriters for Groupon have garnered criticism for the performance of the company’s stock since its IPO.

The long-awaited initial public offering plans to issue 100 million shares with a price range of $8.50 to $10.00. If stock options and existing shares are counted, the company has 904 shares outstanding, Reuters reports.

Selling the shares at the bottom of the price range would raise $850 million and provide the company with a valuation of $7.7 billion, whereas pricing the shares at the top of the range would raise $1 billion and provide the company with a value of $9.04 billion.

Zynga was originally planning a larger IPO but decided to downsize its plans in order to avoid following Pandora and Groupon, which both sank after their primary offerings, according to Bloomberg. Renaissance Capital reports that Zynga is pricing its shares at a multiple of five to six times its 2011 sales, compared to a multiple of seven times for both Groupon and Pandora.

Venture investing as a whole took a major hit in the third quarter, dropping to an eight-year low of $1.7 billion, down from $3.5 billion just one year ago, according to a recent report from consultancy Ernst & Young.

Of that $1.7 billion, however, a surprising $421 million went to green technologies, ranging from solar energy to improved battery technologies. That represents a staggering 1,932 percent increase from the year before.

Many expected investment in solar in particular to decline in the wake of the Solyndra collapse, but Judith Albert, executive director of Environmental Entrepreneurs, explained to the Times that venture capitalists are less risk averse and more willing to accept some failed investments.

Forbes‘ Michael Kanellos suggests that  solar, and the clean energy sector, ultimately will succeed in drawing investment simply because the product represents an unavoidable demand as compared to the somewhat more fickle markets of social media.

Shopycat, designed by Walmart’s new @WalmartLabs, integrates with Facebook and analyzes the interests and activities of users’ friends to provide suggestions for them based on inventories from Walmart and certain other stores, including Barnes & Noble and RedEnvelope.

The app offers specific gift ideas for individuals, but also offers an explanation of where the suggestions come from, allowing for some simple checks before committing to a gift.

Venky Harinarayan, senior vice president of Walmart global ecommerce and cofounder of @WalmartLabs, noted to Forbes that the question of how to determine an appropriate gift from social media interactions can prove difficult, since all product mentions do not necessarily make for gift suggestions, but that the technology is improving.

PCWorld notes that this follows the recent trend in this field set when eBay purchased recommendation engine Hunch.

According to Reuters, the social gaming company responsible for the “FarmVille” craze is the most recent in a list of tech companies looking to get their feet wet in public markets, including Groupon Inc. and Angie’s List. One source claims the IPO could be the largest internet debut ahead of Facebook’s.

The roadshow will see CEO Mark Pincus give presentations to investors, while COO John Schappert and CFO David Wehner are also expected to make appearances.

Zynga filed for an IPO of up to $1 billion on July 1, and is regarded as one of the most highly anticipated IPOs in the technology sector due to its viral computer games, including Farmville and CityVille. Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia told Reuters attention will lie mostly on the company’s estimated $14 billion valuation.

While some claims of poor relations between the company and its employers have surfaced as the company edges closer to going public, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Atul Bagga says the discrepancies are not likely to affect the company’s IPO, according to The Washington Post.

While some might imagine unfair business practices entailed some means of pushing out competitors, the FTC actually took action against Facebook on the basis of consumer privacy concerns.

The agency raised issues such as opening up user information without authorization or notification and changing data security policies without sufficient notice or explanation.

“We’ve all known that Facebook repeatedly cuts corners when it comes to its privacy promises,” Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, told the Times. “Like most Internet companies, they thought they could get away with it. They didn’t.”

The settlement Facebook arranged with the FTC will lead to the company undergoing external privacy audits every two years for the next 20 years. Any later breaches will quickly result in substantial fines.

Despite the undoubted inconvenience of regular audits, Facebook stands to gain from the deal as it prepares for an IPO that could bring in more than $10 billion and any potential investor concerns could cost hundreds of millions.

Nevertheless, Computerworld notes many experts expect Facebook to change only minimally in response to the settlement and believe that the company got off with a relatively light penalty.