San Diego-based photo service TweetPhoto just raised $2.6 million, led by Caanan Partners, along with Anthem Venture Partners and Qualcomm. Peter Kafka of Media Memo, however, can't figure out why. "The new conventional wisdom is that photo-sharing systems built around Twitter are toast," he notes. What's more, "the Series A funding certainly seems a bit more fraught than it did about a week ago ... Since then, Twitter appears to have decided on a build/buy strategy for some functions it previously allowed third-party developers to handle." Couldn't Twitter buy TweetPhoto? Perhaps, but, according to Kafka, a rival …

The modern world is presently experiencing it fifth major technology cycle of the past half a century, according to the latest "State of the Internet" report from Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley's managing director and global technology research head. In what shouldn't come as a shock to ATN readers, the two key trends driving this latest shift are mobile and social networking. Within the next five years "more users will connect to the Internet over mobile devices than desktop PCs," according to Meeker. Also -- based on adoption rates of iPhone/iPod touch compared to that of AOL and …

Despite Google's inexperience as a gadget maker, Bits suggests that the search giant presents the greatest potential threat to Apple's iPad. One reason is Android, which is fast becoming a preferred mobile operating system among aspiring developers. Another, according to The Times blog, is Google's embrace -- along with Apple's utter rejection -- of Adobe and its hugely popular Flash media player. Part and parcel of reasons one and two, Google is increasingly positioning itself as an open and all-inclusive platform in contrast to Apple's closed App Store Model. What's more, Google head Eric Schmidt doesn't expect …

Meet Cpedia -- a new online encyclopedia from Cuil, which GigaOm's Mathew Ingram likens to the "cut up" technique that William S. Burroughs developed back in the late 1950s and early '60s. Pronounced "cool," Cuil itself launched in 2008, claiming to have developed a better and faster search engine than Google's. Cpedia, in Ingram's opinion, "is destined to do at least one thing very well: make even the most poorly-researched Wikipedia page look like the repository of all the world's knowledge." In his blog post, Cpedia founder Tom Costello says his new product, "is very different from …

Catering to the evolving concerns of parents, educators, law enforcement officials and younger users, Facebook has redesigned its Safety Center to more effectively answer such questions as: What should parents do if their teen is being cyber-bullied; and how does the site work with law enforcers to investigate criminal activity? Facebook Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan says the service was made more efficient by, for example, including frequently asked questions with detailed answers. "Safety is Facebook's top priority," Sullivan wrote in a blog post. "We've created cleaner, more navigable interfaces to help you find answers to safety …

At long last, Twitter is unveiling its monetization strategy -- or, as The New York Times puts it, "how the company expects to turn its exponential growth into revenue." And not a moment too soon, writes The Register. "Twitter desperately needs some revenue -- a couple of content-licensing deals [with Google and Microsoft] aren't going to pay the bills and the VC cash will, eventually, run out." Enter the new ad program, which is named Promoted Tweets and will show up when Twitter users search for keywords that advertisers have …

A study has found that such irritating security measures as online sign-in passwords are a waste of time. The study, by what Boston.com calls a "top researcher" at Microsoft, found that instructions intended to spare users from costly computer attacks "often exact a much steeper price in the form of user effort and time expended." Indeed, "Most security advice simply offers a poor cost-benefit trade-off to users," writes report author, Cormac Herley, a principal researcher for Microsoft Research. In particular, Herlery feels the standard rules for creating and protecting Web site passwords are ridiculous.

Straight away, analysts and industry watchers suggested that Apple's entrance into the mobile advertising market would help Google convince regulators to approve its acquisition of mobile ad provider AdMob. On Sunday, Google head Eric Schmidt agreed. "U.S. antitrust enforcers are apparently concerned the AdMob purchase could hurt applications developers, who often sell their apps for very little and make their money by selling advertising space on them," reports Reuters. According to Schmidt, however, Apple iAd mobile ad platform is nothing if not "evidence of a highly competitive market." Still, Schmidt had better be careful what he …

Microsoft has debuted two new mobile phones designed explicitly for social networking-savvy teens and twenty-somethings. The move, according to The Washington Post, represents an "attempt to revitalize [Microsoft's] mobile business and regain ground on iPhones and BlackBerrys."

Tensions between Twitter and its developer community -- which The New York Times all but credits for its success -- will reportedly come to a head this week at a conference in San Francisco. "Serious tension was starting to develop long before the conference," writes The Times. Now, however, "Developers fear that if Twitter's engineers build the same features that they have, Twitter could transform overnight from generous benefactor to arch competitor to their start-ups." Challenging mobile app makers, for example, Twitter just bought Atebits -- a startup that makes Tweetie for the iPhone and Mac, and …