Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) is obviously interested in jumping into promising technologies before they get bid up, and you can't deny that it has taken some interesting, marketing-driven approaches. The Facebook investment was a great example of how the company can innovatively jump in early and all but lock itself in as the eventual investment banker of choice.

In a similar vein, Goldman Sachs recently brought together a group of public and private companies and institutional investors for an off-the-record Cloud Computing Conference in Menlo Park, Calif. About 200 attendees showed up, according to Venture Capital Dispatch.

A star studded affair, the conference featured big-name investors from the likes of Benchmark Capital, JMI Equity and various mutual fund companies.

You can imagine that the investment banking competition is hot and heavy right now. If you really want in on this, you've got to invest in a variety of ways, and that is apparently what Goldman Sachs is doing.

It will be interesting to see which, if any, companies merit the Facebook treatment. My sense is that a more likely route will be to set up a fund that's dedicated to pre-public cloud company investments, akin to what JPMorgan has done for social media investments; its recently announced fund seeks to raise at least $500 million from wealthy investors to invest.

You can bet a lot of thought at all the top investment banks is going into this area. All that said, the cloud bubble may never fully materialize, despite the best efforts of top Wall Street firms.

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