Nissan North America, Inc. has tapped David Reuter to be director, corporate communications, succeeding Fred Standish, who retired as of April 1 after 18 years with the company. Reuter, whose appointment is effective May 10, will be responsible for all corporate communications activities including manufacturing communications, philanthropic efforts and crisis and strategic communications. Most recently, he led communications for the Americas arm of Bentley Motors, Inc., leading all product, corporate and internal communications. Previously, he held various communications assignments at Ford Motor Company.--Karl Greenberg

Atari has partnered with a series of companies to help promote its Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers videogame title. Among the partners: Franklin Sports, whose products and logo will appear within the game; GT Beverages, which will featured the game's logo on its Sportastic Sports Drink and the Baseball Youth Road Trip Fanfest, where it will be the exclusive game on the interactive traveling tour on the East and West coasts.--Aaron Baar

Google just brought its “similar page resultsâ€� onto the front page of users’ search results. According to ReadWriteWeb, the move represents a “continued effort to custom tailor search results and suggest that what your [sic] searching for might actually be something else.â€� The feature, which will now be included directly at the bottom of users’ first search results page, is similar to other improvements made by Google recently, such as localizing its search suggestions list, adding search suggestions to Google Maps and suggesting a suicide hotline number for select search phrases. “While we've certainly taken some issue with Google’s …

IAC’s Match.com is demanding that newer rival PlentyOfFish -- which is now the top dating site globally -- stop making “a very long list of claimsâ€� about its service, paidContent reports. Among other contentions, PlentyOfFish is telling the world that: “20,000 people sign up per day; Our members will go on over 18 million dates with other users this year; If you come from a midsized city, there is a good chance there are at least 3,000 people online right now in your city.â€� In response, Match.com General Counsel Marshall Dye wrote in a letter to PlentyOfFish founder Markus …

In other Apple acquisition news, it looks like the company has picked up a mobile “assistantâ€� app maker named Siri. According to Business Insider, the deal “puts Apple in even closer competition with Google, as we believe that mobile assistant apps are one of the many ways that search will look on mobile platforms … So, in a sense, Apple just got into the search business.â€� According to Siri itself: “You can ask Siri to find a romantic place for dinner, tell you what’s playing at a local jazz club or get tickets to a movie for Saturday night.â€� …

Toshiba is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Toshiba 1100, the first mass-produced consumer laptop, with a series of social media contests challenging consumers to be creative with Toshiba laptops of the past and future. The first contest asks fans to submit photos or videos that adhere to the theme, "Quest for the World's Oldest Toshiba Laptop." The videos are to be submitted through the company's Facebook page or at 25.toshiba.com.--Aaron Baar

Audi, whose vehicles are featured in "Iron Man 2" is launching a marketing program around the Marvel Entertainment film that backs the movie's national run with a social media competition, “The Tony Stark Innovation Challengeâ€� and advertising. Besides running a month-long late night TV and national cable campaign, and an online presence on Fandango.com and Movies.com. The automaker also ran an Iron Man-themed TV spot in cinemas in the month leading up to the release. Audi is also sponsoring the re-launch of Marvel.com that will include a digital comic book featuring the R8 Spyder convertible. In the film, …

The Washington Post today unveiled its answer to Politico, PostPolitics.com, a new site led by Chris Cillizza, who writes the newspaper's The Fix blog, and aggregating political stories and blog posts from across the Post newsroom. Over time, PostPolitics promises to offer more original video, contributions from an expanded number of bloggers, content-sharing via social networks, and reader polling. But will it have its version of Politico's Playbook?

Barclays Capital predicting a 20% increase in total upfront volume to $8.26 billion for the Big Four networks this summer. Factors include the current strong scatter market and resurgence of the auto category. For individual networks, Barclays predicts CBS will land a 27.5% increase in volume to $2.43 billion; Fox will be up 22% to $1.96 billion; ABC to increase 16.2% to $2.21 billion; and NBC will have a 12.8% bump to $1.65 billion. CPMs? Barclays says look for high single digit increases. Barclays noted that a 20% increase in 2010 would be in line with what …

Microsoft says it has reached an agreement with HTC that allows the handset maker to use its patents to build mobile phones running the Android mobile platform. Apparently the deal entitles the Redmond, Wash., company to licensing revenue from Android phones.