Twitter-based ad platform TweetUp has acquired all of Tomatic's current projects, which include both popurls and twidroyd. "The acquisition will provide TweetUp with both a new platform to distribute its sponsored search results as well as a new source of relevant search results," reports ReadWriteWeb. TweetUp -- not "tweetup," which is a real-life meeting of Twitter users -- is a search and ad service for Twitter that lets users bid to make their tweets appear higher in TweetUp searches. The company says it combines relevance algorithms with a bidding system to raise one's search profile. Popurls provides …

Thanks largely to the popularity of Google's Android operating system, HTC just posted a 63% gain in revenues for the second quarter, year-over-year. "HTC is the largest producer of Android phones globally, and these results speak loudly to the success of the platform in the smartphone space," writes GigaOm's jkOnTheRun blog. The Taiwanese smartphone maker produces many of the top Android phones, including the EVO 4G, Droid Incredible and the Nexus One. "The company also produces Windows Mobile phones, but the Android side of the business no doubt accounts for the lion's share of these results." According …

How secure is Facebook's administrative system? To find out, a senior engineer at the company responsible for "site reliability engineering," recently challenged his fellow Facebook employees to compromise him and, using information obtained from him, gain access to the social work's backend system. It took a couple weeks, but they succeeded by exploiting his home WiFi network. TechCrunch suggests that Facebook was inspired by the "slap down" that the FTC gave Twitter in June because it "failed to prevent unauthorized administrative control of its system." While applauding the effort, however, TechCrunch asks: "If a security engineer at …

Netflix has entered into a partnership with Hollywood production shop Relativity Media, which will give it exclusive streaming rights to movies under Relativity's distribution purview. TheWrap.com's Sharon Waxman, who broke news of the deal, suggests that it could "change the landscape of pay television deals." Indeed, according to Waxman, "The deal would effectively make Netflix a new player in the pay television window, competing with the likes of HBO, Showtime and Starz." Going forward, Relativity is slated to distribute "The Fighter," starring Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale, the documentary "Catfish," and the Medieval thriller "Season of the …

MySpace's search-advertising partnership with Google is set to expire next month. Eying a replacement deal, parent company News Corp. is in discussions with the search giant -- along with Microsoft and Yahoo -- sources tell The Wall Street Journal. "Under the existing deal, Google agreed to make up to $900 million in guaranteed payments for the right to sell small ads as users surf and tap out searches on News Corp.'s MySpace.com and on a handful of smaller News Corp. Web sites," reports The Journal. "But recently, MySpace has fallen far short of Web traffic …

Steve who? Despite a flurry of development in the budding mobile arena, Google CEO Eric Schmidt says he has no desire to "beat" Apple. "That's not how we operate," he tells the UK's Telegraph. Rather, "We're trying to do something different than Apple and the good news is that Apple is making that very easy." Translation? "The difference between the Apple model and the Google model is easy to understand," says Schmidt. "The Google model is completely open ... The Apple model is the inverse.' This week, Google released an update to its Android mobile operating system. …

Picking on a crew of quixotic college kids, Business Insider asks why their would-be Facebook-killer even exists. No doubt, their privacy-centric social network, dubbed Diaspora, rode a wave of bad press that tarred Facebook as a power-hungry, privacy-invading monster. In May, a New York Times profile linked Diaspora's efforts to a growing collective resentment against Facebook "for devouring every morsel of personal information we are willing to feed it." But, now that the most recent Facebook backlash seems to have blown over, Business Insider is telling Diaspora's young founders to kindly move along. "Everyone did their …

Determined to break into America's living rooms, Apple is quietly reimagining its television-related efforts, sources tell The New York Times' Bits blog. The efforts, which confirm recent reports in Engadget, will likely include a completely redesigned interface. As Engadget previously suggested, Apple could base its new television design on its iOS operating system, which powers the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. "Another person, who recently left Apple and was involved with the company's television group, said some of the more advanced work on the next version of the TV is not taking place within the …

Facebook has added face detection technology to all uploaded photos, reports All Facebook. "Now when you upload photos to various areas of the site, including the homepage, you should be able to instantly tag your friends without clicking on them in the actual photo," writes the blog. "Instead, the system will automatically detect faces in the photos and prompt you to select the friend who's face it is." All Facebook credits the new feature to Facebook's acquisition of Divvyshot in April. (It also manages to make something that sounds potentially really creep, like a huge convenience, but …

Best Buy wants the head of a 25-year-old employee who created an expletive-laced viral video hit using xtranrml.com that portrays a generic store employee trying to convince an iPhone 4 shopper to buy an HTC EVO 4G instead. To date, the iPhone 4 vs. HTC EVO video has been viewed nearly 1.7 million times on YouTube. "They felt it disparaged a brand they carried (iPhone/Apple) as well as the store itself and were fearful of stockholders & customers being turned off to Best Buy Mobile," Maupin tells TechCrunch. But, "What's ridiculous is that nowhere in the …