Can a rumored photo-sharing service right Twitter's ship? Well, "Twitter users can already share photos on their Twitter streams via Twitpic and Yfrog, but ... a built-in service would have a significant advantage over competing apps," writes CNet. Indeed, "Many Twitter clients, including those developed by the company, use the links [provided by third-party apps] to go fetch ... images and display them inline," writes All Things D. "But the process could certainly be smoother." "Twitter users like to type status updates, but they also like to share photos," writes Fast Company. "If it's …

Amid efforts to offer its own mobile payment system, Google is being sued by PayPal over claims it misappropriated trade secrets from its mobile-payment business. "Osama Bedier, a former PayPal executive now at Google, stole PayPal's confidential information," reports Bloomberg, citing a lawsuit filed by the company on Thursday.What's more, "Stephanie Tilenius, another ex-PayPal executive now at Google, violated contractual obligations by recruiting Bedier," PayPal claims. Bedier "is now leading Google's efforts to bring point of sale technologies and services to retailers on its behalf," according to the complaint. "Bedier and Google have misappropriated PayPal trade …

Facebook has reportedly partnered with music-streaming service Spotify for a new offering, which could debut in as little as two weeks. "The integrated service is currently going through testing, but when launched, Facebook users will see a Spotify icon appear on the left side of their newsfeed, along with the usual icons for photos and events," reports Forbes, citing sources. "The benefit to the industry would come via monthly subscriptions for premium access to streaming Web sites or from buying CDs or downloads of the music they discover and assemble on sites like Spotify," according to

It looks like we're about to get a closer look at Google's mobile payment platform. On Thursday, "Google is expected to disclose details about how consumers will be able to make store purchases, redeem coupons, and get loyalty points by waving smartphones in front of a small reader at the checkout counter," reports The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources. "A mobile payments or wallets service would be a different beast that would compete more directly with internal initiatives by eBay's PayPal, Amazon, or traditional credit card companies, such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express," according to

Taking out another potential competitor, Twitter has reportedly acquired TweetDeck for more than $40 million in cash and stock. "Twitter has been known to either downplay third-party apps or acquire them," writes CNNMoney.com. "In the past, Twitter has scooped up popular Twitter iPhone app Tweetie, and partnered with photo add-on TwitPic as it launched its new interface.""Why would Twitter want to buy a third-party client?" asks PCWorld. "Twitter's acquisition of TweetDeck is seen mainly as a defensive move ... UberMedia already controls a significant chunk of users through its mobile apps, and TweetDeck would …