Intel Capital, one of the biggest corporate venture capital firms and investors in Seattle companies such as Clearwire, Likewise Software and others, reduced its number of investments by 37 percent in 2009, according to Scott Austin at Venture Capital Dipatch. The firm's $325 million in investments was the lowest amount since 2005, and were off 45 percent compared to 2008. (Excluding the firm's $1 billion investment in Clearwire in 2008).

That didn't take along. A week after Apple introduced the new iPad, a group of investors in New York have created a seed fund called the AppFund which will bankroll iPad applications with anywhere from $5,000 to $500,000, reports TechCrunch.

NanoString Technologies, which helps researchers detect and count large sets of target molecules in biological samples, has appointed William Young as executive chairman of the board. Young -- the current chair of Biogen Idec -- is the former CEO of Monogram Biosciences and former COO at Genentech. Seattle-based Nanostring raised a $30 million venture round last summer.

Speaking of apps, VentureBeat reports on a cool chart showing the most popular apps on the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. What, no Windows Mobile.

Only eight percent of U.S. teens are on Twitter, according to report out this week from the Pew Research Center.

Zillow.com COO Spencer Rascoff says in a Tweet that the online real estate company had its biggest traffic month on record last month with nine million unique visitors.

Headline of the day comes via MG Siegler at TechCrunch: "Man Resigns on Twitter in Haiku. Happens to be Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz"