*

TechCrunch reports that Facebook has an HTML5-based mobile Web store in the works that iPhone and iPad users can access via their Safari browsers. Eighty third party developers, including Zynga, are supposedly working on the project. “Why? Because it’s the one area of the device that Facebook will be able to control (or mostly control).” And though details remain scarce, the tech blog also reports the social network is working on a
photo-sharing
 feature, possibly residing within the current iPhone app, packing features resembling Instagram, Color, and Path. (TechCrunch)

* Pandora shares ended regular session trading at $17.42, almost 9% higher than its $16 offering price. The freemium streaming radio service boasts around 90 million listeners but lost $1.8 million on sales of $138 million in 2010. (Wired)

* HP filed a civil lawsuit in California against Oracle. The move comes after the latter company said back in March that it would stop supporting HP’s Itanium platform because Intel didn’t plan to keep the platform over the long run. (ZDNet)

* Given IBM’s 100th anniversary, The Next Web takes a good look at how far the company has come since the original merger of Hollerith’s Tabluating Machine Company with the Computing Scale Company of America and International Recording Company. (The Next Web)

* News site Reddit, which has seen its unique monthly visits jump 37% since January, nearly tripled its engineering staff today, with new hires like Google’s Logan Hanks, Oracle’s Keith Mitchell and engineering grad Brian Simpson. (TechCrunch)

* Apple rolled out its Back to School promotion, including the usual 10% hardware discount but swapping out the free iPod Touch offer (with the purchase of a Mac) for a $100 software gift card instead. The gift card is applicable towards apps like iWork, but not towards Microsoft Office. (Fortune)

* Is Tumblr the next great social network? (Steve Rubel’s blog)

* Robert Scoble on why Android will gain huge market share later this year. One of his reasons? An impending $350 Android tablet. (Scobleizer)

* Colleague Beth Kowitt has the inside story on how Google conquered the smartphone world. (Fortune)

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