To break the Congressional deadlock over the debt ceiling crisis, President Obama today turned to a weapon that's helped to bring down governments across Northern Africa and the Middle East this spring: Twitter. In an address earlier today, Obama urged voters to write, call or tweet their local Congress members to put pressure on them to reach a compromise on raising the debt ceiling with the Aug. 2 deadline looming.

Facebook appears to be taking another step toward extending its franchise to mobile devices. According to a Bloomberg report Wednesday, the social networking powerhouse is set to bring its Facebook Credits virtual currency to the mobile Web. Starting this month, Facebook began requiring social game developers on the site such as Zynga to process payments using Credits. Facebook in turn takes a 30% cut of transactions using its virtual currency.

With peak vacation season upon us, a new study from mobile ad network Mojiva and Insight Express takes a look at travel planning via mobile. The upshot of the survey was that nearly three quarters of (73%) consumers book their travel plans a month or less in advance so it's not too late to target people during the peak summer travel season.

eBay has been one of the most aggressive retail players in the m-commerce space, both through its lineup of category-specific mobile apps and its PayPal payments unit. The company has projected doubling its mobile transaction volume this year to $4 billion. Much of the spending on eBay is coming through PayPal Mobile, which is on track to handle $3 billion in payment volume in 2011, up four-fold from last year. Impressive numbers, but what's especially interesting is eBay's strategy of being anywhere and everywhere consumers want access to one its services -- something like the retail version of the cable …

There's little question the iPhone is ascendant. Nokia was overtaken by Apple as the world's leading smartphone maker by volume in the second quarter, with 20.3 million iPhones shipped in that time period, compared to 16.7 million for the Finnish phone giant. The number of iPhones shipped was up 142% from a year ago, while Nokia's smartphone total fell 34%. A wireless changing of the guard is underway.

In one of the strongest statements yet against AT&T's proposed acquisition of T-Mobile, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) called the deal "highly dangerous to competition and consumers" in a letter sent today to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. He urged the agencies to block the planned $39 billion merger.

Few would debate the natural link between mobile technology and local information as people use their devices to learn more about nearby businesses or connect with other people on the go. So it's hardly surprising a trove of companies -- from Foursquare to WhitePages.com to AT&T -- are trying to capitalize on that connection with mobile efforts catering to consumers and small businesses alike.

A new mobile advertising study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau presented at its "Mobile Marketplace" conference Monday had few topline surprises, but offered some interesting insights -- especially those relating to agencies.

There's no question social networking is expanding onto cell phones. The 250 million -- and counting -- mobile users of Facebook alone attest to that fact. But the proportion of U.S. mobile users who access social networks on their devices isn't quite as clear.

After months of speculation and hints, it looks as if Amazon is finally getting ready to roll out its own tablet in the third quarter. The company will release an Android-powered device with a 9-inch display but no camera by October, according to a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.