Fashioning itself as the ultimate app finder, Yahoo just debuted an App Search services for desktop users, along with an AppSpot app for the iPhone and Android devices. Shashi Seth, Yahoo's SVP of search and marketplaces, compared the current state of the app world to the early days of the Web, "before Yahoo's founders made navigation easier with their listings and search engine," VentureBeat writes. Now, when users search for an app by name or type, instead of just offering a link to a listing in an app store, Yahoo now points them to a Yahoo profile page …

As Tumblr overtakes Wordpress as the Web's go-to blog platform, NPR takes a look at company's winning strategy. "It's more almost like, you know, an email experience in a way," Tumblr's Mark Coatney tells NPR. "You'll dash off an email or do a tweet or something like that because it's quick and easy, so it's kind of taking that thinking and applying it to blogging." Put another way, "Analysts say at the moment, among all of the competitors, Tumblr is the easiest to use," NPR writes. Tumblr also tries to differentiate itself by acting as an offline connector. …

With the help of TV manufacturer Vizio, Google is all but guaranteed to take over the tablet market, insists tech blogger Robert Scoble. How? Slated to hit U.S. shelves by late July, Vizio's Android-supported will cost just $350 compared to the $500 Apple charges for an iPad. "There are a whole range of uses that don't need an iPad, but need a good tablet," Scoble explains. "For instance, let's say you are outfitting a school with tablets and all you need is a good web browser at a very low cost? Vizio wins here. Apple doesn't." That's right, …

In late March, the digerati was abuzz about Color -- a proximity- and photo-based social network -- and its game-changing potential. With Color, "Augmented reality and nuanced social graphs may finally come of age," wrote John Battelle. Just a few months later, however, critics are calling Color dead man walking on the news that co-founder and president Peter Pham has left the company. Color is the brainchild of CEO Bill Nguyen, who most recently sold Lala to Apple for about $80 million. Nguyen tells All Things D that Pham and Color had parted ways more than a month …

Social media influence measurer Klout has added LinkedIn connections and activities to its overall scoring system. "Klout can now assess your ability to drive action on LinkedIn, as well as appraise who you're influencing on the service, and exactly how you're influencing them," Mashable explains. "Once you add LinkedIn from your Klout dashboard, your LinkedIn connections and activities are pooled with your Twitter and/or Facebook actions, and incorporated in your Klout score and score analysis." As Klout CEO and co-founder Joe Fernandez explains: "It's clear that people put a huge value on their business connections, and …

For an academic and well-mannered debate on the existence of another tech bubble, head over to The Economist where lecturer and retired entrepreneur Steve Blank is making his case against Ben Horowitz, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (which owns shares in Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, Twitter and Foursquare). "I am not arguing that Netflix, Salesforce.com and LinkedIn are not overvalued," notes Horowitz. (What about Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, Twitter and Foursquare?) "I am simply arguing that their valuations have not become completely divorced from any rational thought. If they have not, we have not taken a major step towards a …

Ouch. Under the headline, "Investors Should Pass on Pandora's Radio Flier," WSJ's Rolfe Winkler says, well, just that. Why? Pandora's ad-based business model can't scale, Winkler insists, particularly will all the growth concentrated in mobile. "With advertising generating 90% of sales, the tricky part is selling radio spots fast enough to keep up with costs," he writes. Not only are royalty fees scheduled to rise each year through 2015, but only about 1% of Pandora listener hours are devoted to ads -- compared to traditional radio's roughly 20%. "Those ads often repeat, implying advertisers aren't jumping on board …

If a bit later than its VC rivals, Menlo Ventures is now convinced that social media is big business. "This is not a few-year trend, this is a decades-long trend," Shawn T. Carolan, a managing director at Menlo Ventures, tells The New York Times. "The digital social fabric that binds people will affect Internet services in many different ways." As such, Menlo has brought on Shervin Pishevar -- an entrepreneur and angel investor with no formal venture capital experience -- whose main focus will be to create an incubator to nurture talent and identify investment opportunities early. At …

Ted Leonsis has been a director at Groupon since June 2009, and vice chairman since April 2011. He's also a partner at Revolution Growth, Steve Case's investing fund, which owns stock in Groupon rival LivingSocial. According to Revolution, Leonsis has no personal financial stake in LivingSocial, but -- as corporate-governance experts tell Bloomberg Businessweek -- the relationship could still pose a "conflict." "While venture firms often have competing start-ups in their portfolios, Leonsis' situation involves two dominant companies in a market that may generate $3.9 billion in the U.S. alone by 2015," Bloomberg Businessweek explains. "His relationships also …

Less than a year old, mobile photo-sharing service Instagram just surpassed the 5 million member mark, and is showing no signs of letting up. "Just this past weekend, they added 100,000 new users," notes TechCrunch. "Even more amazing, there are now 1.25 million users for every one employee of Instagram." Part of Instagram's early success is being attributed to its popular API, which is now being accessed by over 2,500 applications. Third-party Instagram applications are now being pioneered by everyone from fashion photographers to rock bands. All told, Instagram users have already posted more than 95 million photos, …