In light of Ancestry.com’s IPO today, tech site Vator.tv calculated the average age of the venture-backed tech companies that have gone public this year. As its chart below shows, most of these companies are downright old in tech years–in fact, Derek Jeter’s New York Yankees have won five World Series in the average time, 13 years, they made it to the public markets.

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It all started with a “stupid” idea and a message about pinot noir.

Two of the founders of Twitter Inc., Evan Williams and Biz Stone, talked about how the micro-blogging service began, the challenges it faced and an eventual potential IPO, at Startup School, an event organized by Y Combinator held at the University of California-Berkeley on Saturday.

In 2006, Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone had an assignment at podcasting start-up Odeo, along with everyone else at the company, to build something new over two weeks.

Dorsey drew up a simple sketch of a text-entry box with the word “Status” above it and the domain name, my.stat.us.

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If you have been an investor in technology IPOs in recent months you’ve done well. Starting in April, and really gathering momentum this summer, there has been a slew of tech companies that leapt through the public market window including Changyou (CYOU), Rosetta Stone (RST), OpenTable (OPEN), and most recently Emdeon (EM).

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Silicon Valley venture capitalists–who invest in startups with the aim of profiting later when those companies go public or are sold–have found it tough to produce returns recently. Not only have the markets been largely devoid of public offerings and M&A of their startup companies, many private company CEOs also are more reluctant to take their firms public given concerns over the cost and hassle of an IPO.

Now some venture-capital firms are trying to tamp down the anxiety levels over taking a company public.

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Does Liberty Media (LINTA) want to own AOL?

CNBC’s David Faber raised the question this morning at the tail end of a long interview with Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei. And Maffei indicated that Liberty, the media empire controlled by billionaire investor John Malone, actually does have some interest in the Time Warner (TWX) unit, which is currently on track to be spun off as a separate company via an IPO.

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Startup executives and employees haven’t had it easy cashing out of their private company stock since the IPO and M&A markets, which typically provide “liquidity” and a route to riches, have been relatively moribund in recent years. Spotting an opportunity, several companies have sprung up in recent months to try and provide startups with new avenues to liquidity.

Next week, another of these companies, SharesPost, plans to announce their new service, say people briefed on the matter. The Los Angeles-area based company, headed by CEO Greg Brogger, will unveil an online platform where people can list their private company shares for sale and get bids for the stock.

SharesPost is positioned as a kind of Craigslist for private company stock, connecting sellers and buyers in an online classified ads-like model, say people briefed on the matter.

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Venture capitalists view the decision by e-book pioneer E Ink Corp. to sell out to a Taiwanese company as one more sign of the moribund IPO market.

E Ink, of Cambridge, Mass., would once have been a sure-fire candidate for an initial public offering. Its sales more than doubled to $18 million in the first quarter on the strength of rising sales of products like Amazon.com’s (AMZN) Kindle and Sony’s (SNE) Reader, which use E Ink technology. But today IPOs are scanty, and venture capitalists increasingly look to the mergers-and-acquisitions market as their best exit.

E Ink president Russ Wilcox said after the sale announcement that it was easier for Prime View International, its Taipei-based acquirer, to raise money by going public there and in London than it would have been for E Ink to go public in the U.S. “This is an innovative way to get access to the public markets and grow the company at a very fast speed,” he said.

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Wow, an actual, honest-to-goodness, venture-backed software IPO.

We’re getting one today.

SolarWinds Inc. (SWI), an Austin-based provider of network management software, on Tuesday priced an IPO of 12,116,279 shares at $12.50 apiece. The company is selling 9 million shares in the offer, with selling holders–including various officers of the company and several venture investors–offering the rest. The selling holders will sell up to an additional 1,817,441 shares to cover over-allotments.

The banks on the deal include J.P. Morgan (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS), with Jefferies & Co. (JEF), Thomas Weisel (TWPG) and Ladenburg Thalmann as co-managers.

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Silicon Valley-ites have had a tougher time getting rich for much of this decade because their normal routes to huge fortunes–the sale or IPO of their startup tech companies–have been crimped by new regulations and poor market conditions, which have worsened in this recession.

Now some outfits are trying to step into that wealth breach. On Thursday, a New York company called SecondMarket said it would offer a new avenue where owners of private company stock can sell their shares even if the startups haven’t gone public. This private company marketplace will allow venture capital investors, entrepreneurs and startup employees to sell their stock to angel investors, secondary buyers and others who are interested in buying into their privately held firm.

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I’ve talked quite a bit in the past about the turning point that the year 2004 represented in the video game business. To recap, in that year the internet revolution finally rocked the game business to its core, with electronic distribution and new business models reaching mainstream acceptance. Between the release of World of Warcraft, the launch of Half Life 2 through Steam, the Shanda, TenCent and JAMDAT IPOs, and several other events, 2004 was a watershed year for the industry.

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EBay (EBAY) this afternoon announced that it plans to spin off Skype via an initial public offering in the first half of 2010. The company said specific timing of the IPO will depend on market conditions. The announcement did not say whether eBay would maintain a stake in the company.

In a statement, eBay CEO John Donahoe said that Skype is “a great stand-alone business with strong fundamentals and accelerating momentum, but that it has “limited synergies with eBay and PayPal.” He adds that operating Skype as a stand-alone company “is the best path for maximizing its potential.”

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Complicating the Diploma-Gate issue that cropped last week at Concur Technologies (CNQR), it turns out that a second company executive also misstated his educational background in some corporate filings.

Last week, Concur confirmed that company filings from 1998 through January 2007 incorrectly asserted that CEO S. Steven Singh had a degree from the University of Michigan, where he attended college, but never actually graduated. Then over the weekend, the company issued a statement saying its board regretted the incident, but that it had full confidence in the CEO.

Today, a spokeswoman for the company confirmed in response to a query from Tech Trader Daily that some Concur filings, including the S-1 for its IPO, incorrectly asserted that Singh’s brother, Rajeev Singh, the company’s president and chief operating officer, had a degree from Kettering University. More recent disclosures, including the bio on the company’s Web site, say he has a degree from Western Michigan University.

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Sohu.com, one of China’s largest Internet companies, hopes U.S. investors like its hack-and-slash videogames enough to give it as much as $120 million.

The Beijing-based company filed this week for an initial public offering of American depositary shares for its online game subsidiary, Changyou.com, on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The company started its road show presentations for investors in Hong Kong Wednesday, and will issue the price of the deal in the coming week, said company executives.

Changyou.com has developed the popular multiplayer online role-playing games Tian Long Ba Bu and Blade Online. Both feature sword-and-sorcery action, though they draw from China’s kung fu legends.

If it happens, the listing will be the first on Nasdaq since last November, according to Reuters. And it would be the first Chinese company to do an IPO in the U.S. since television advertising company China Mass Media International Advertising Corp. launched in August. This will also make Sohu the first Internet service company in China to have its Web portal service and online game division listed in the stock market.

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There was an article about Blockbuster (BBI) on Venture Beat yesterday. The trading of the stock was halted after it dropped 77 percent because apparently the company is seeking to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

I worked for Blockbuster for a brief period of time after Bankers Trust (another defunct company–now part of Deutsche Bank) and before CRV. I was the President of BBI responsible for new media. I got there right before their second IPO as it spun out of Viacom (VIA) and left right before the now infamous Enron deal.

It was an excellent career move for me and despite my short time there I learned a lot, got to do a lot and almost became the kingpin of cable!

Here is the story of what almost happened.

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The numbers are startling; one technology IPO last quarter, only six in 2008. Is innovation dead? Did Google/Microsoft/Cisco consume all the promising start-ups? Did Sarbanes-Oxley render IPOs too hard and costly? Yes, if you believe columnists, conferences and collective wisdom.

They’re wrong. IPOs aren’t popular because they are perilous. Choosing extra risk now is like stocking up on peanut butter energy bars during a salmonella outbreak. The downside is ugly. New “unseasoned” issues are like new car models, rife with unknown quirks. We know their lineage and plans, but the future is mostly hope and speculation. Hindsight shows that newly public companies are prone to err when first under the marketplace spotlight.

The question isn’t “why aren’t investors buying IPOs now?” but rather “why do investors ever buy IPOs?” The answer is that institutional investors, the principal IPO buyers, exist to take calculated risks. If convinced potential reward overcompensates for added risk, fund managers will belly up to the IPO bar and order a double. Conversely, when offered safer, appealing choices, investors will skip the umbrella drinks and opt for the single malts. These days, risk reminds us of Jagermeister shots: something that used to be fun.

However, unless entrepreneurs now dream of Hondas–not Ferraris–and unless these “damn the torpedoes” folks checked their aspirations in the umbrella stand, the IPO market will be back.

The process of going public is tougher than it used to be but it’s still an entrepreneur’s crowning achievement. Need proof? Name four famous tech company founders. How about Sergey, Larry, Steve and Bill? Now name four tech legends who sold out to Cisco (CSCO), Microsoft (MSFT) or IBM (IBM). OK, name one.

IPOs are proof that ideas and hard work create recognizable value. No other exit affords founders both the glory and the independence. More tangible reasons to go include the start-up promise to employees; “Work long hours for low pay today, and tomorrow you too can afford a Tesla.” There’s no guarantee of success, but if it’s realized, there is an agreement that it will be shared by all. An IPO is the deliverable on that deal.

Secondly, acquisitive growth companies often prefer shopping with stock over cash, but agreeing on private-stock value is difficult. Public equity is a better currency because of its undeniable, third-party valuation. Finally, Silicon Valley’s history proves that yesterdays’ IPOs fund seed capital for tomorrow’s innovators.

A healthy economy needs a robust IPO market, begging the question: With so few of late, are we up the creek? To the contrary, five pointers suggest when we emerge from the current mess; our IPO market may be healthier than it has been in a decade.

1. Sarbanes Oxley is good for IPOs. According to Morgan Stanley Research, over a 20-year period, north of 60 percent of technology IPOs trade below their offer price. High on the list of reasons why newly public companies flounder is their failure to heed the wisdom of Paul Masson; they sell before their time.

The distractions are enormous and expensive. It’s genuinely difficult to lay the rails while driving a bullet train. Natural business challenges are compounded by the Sarbanes Oxley albatross. Fine-point accountability requirements force order on the chaos inherent in rapidly growing companies, but unquestionably slow the journey to market.

At an average small company cost of $3.0m, SOX implementation takes a major bite out of profits. However, while this expense initially reduces calculable company valuable for those using current earnings to set the IPO price, over time, accountability reduces corporate risk and therefore should increase returns. In fact, if a company can’t afford the expense and hasn’t endured the hardship of thoroughly documenting its systems, is it really ready for the teachers’ retirement fund, corporate pension plan or other public investors? It was easier to go public before SOX but, for investors or issuers, was it better?

2. The demise of investment banks is good for IPOs. Today, we lambast investment banks because they earned it. Formerly sure-footed firms ran full speed into a bog they didn’t understand. Those whom Tom Wolfe once christened “Masters of the Universe” and “BSDs” have morphed into LSWs (little shriveled walnuts).

How does this help the IPO market? In the heyday, technology IPOs were shepherded by boutique investment banks focused on, and economically aligned with emerging growth companies. Those banks didn’t invent, sell or swap CDOs or SIVs. Rather, in the 1990s, following the wisdom of the day, they sold out to diversified, theoretically better-capitalized, larger banks. Those acquiring banks emulated Audrey, the man-eating plant from “Little Shop of Horrors,” demanding ever larger revenues to sustain their mass, leaving new issuers who generate small fees with little IPOs, an acronym of their own; SOL.

Now, with large investment banks hanging with the pterodactyls, there’s an opportunity for boutiques to rise again, a turn that could be very good for the IPO market.

3. The implosion of hedge funds is good for IPOs. Hedge funds vary in size and style but until recently, the market movers who mattered were the fast-money behemoths. These players often care about IPOs only on day one. In a whiplash market, even longer term investors had little opportunity to amass measurable holdings of new issues. With the fast money players sidelined, patient “investment” (versus speculative) funds may again have time to develop confidence in management, a prerequisite for accumulating big positions in newly public stocks.

4. The new administration is good for IPOs: “It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things…who have carried us up the long rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.”

Public recognition of the entrepreneurial spirit, and its critical role in our economy, by President Obama in his Inaugural Address. Enough said.

5. Constrained venture capital is good for IPOs. Comfortable start-ups, with logo-emblazoned, fleece-clad employees sometimes grow flabby. Conversely, start-ups scraping by to pay bills must focus on building and profitably selling products. While some genuinely need millions for development, others require only cheap computers and smart people willing to work like politicians during primary season. Eventually, outside investment fuels expansion, but examples from Apple (AAPL) to Intuit (INTU) to Google (GOOG) prove that, as the lottery once advertised, all it takes (at first) is a dollar (or a credit card) and a dream. Less venture money sloshing around today will likely mean fewer but stronger start-ups tomorrow.

It isn’t broken, please don’t “fix” it. Today’s IPO market is not healthy, but it is rational. Government’s role should be to insure that observant, active, on-the-ball regulators have the tools and backing to seek out and slam down financial cheats, thereby restoring confidence in the markets. If government can find a way to restrict extortionist lawsuits filed whenever a stock drops, that would help too. Otherwise, well-meaning administrators should stand clear.

When the markets settle and when the blue plate specials on blue chip securities abate, when the investment merits of an IPO are self-evident, a better and stronger market will be ready.