Here's a perfect example of what happens when the marketing department and the IT department within a large company do not work closely together, something I wrote about last week. JetBlue began offering a $9 flight promotion from Long Beach to San Francisco or Oakland Monday. The promotion, good through May 19, requires you to fly on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. Perfect, I thought. I want to attend the Google I/O conference in San Francisco on May 19 in San Francisco and can fly out of Long Beach, Calif. But when I went online to purchase the tickets the …

Dodge is dangling a Challenger R/T car in its new “Challenger Chase To Win� sweeps meant to spotlight the muscle car’s debut in the 2010 NASCAR Nationwide Series. The giveaway version wears a black-and-orange paint scheme that mirrors Penske Racing’s No. 12 Verizon Wireless Dodge. Entry to the sweeps is at Dodgemotorsports.com or at Dodge’s display areas at several races this year at tracks like Daytona, Talladega, and Kansas Speedway.

The Smoothie King chain has launched “Fit n’ Crunchy Bowls,� a line of yogurt and sorbet bowls featuring “superfood� ingredients, intended as healthy meal replacement options. The line’s varieties include two acai versions, tart yogurt (blueberry or strawberry) and sorbet (raspberry or mango). All ingredients are all-natural, and the bowls are fortified with vitamins and minerals. New Orleans-based Smoothie King, founded in 1973, now has 600 worldwide locations offering smoothies, sports beverages and nutrition products, energy bars and other healthy snacks, as well as vitamin and herb/mineral supplements.--Karlene Lukovitz

Yahoo has announced an expanded partnership with Samsung that will put the Web portal on millions of the manufacturer’s devices, including those running Samsung bada and Android. Through the global partnership starting May 20, Samsung phones will come pre-loaded with one or more key Yahoo properties including: Mail, Messenger, Flickr, News, Finance and Weather globally starting May 20. Read more here.

Shepard Fairey, the artist probably best known for his iconic Hope Obama posters, couldn't talk about the lawsuit with AP surrounding that image still dragging at a talk on Sunday at the Brooklyn Museum, but he did shed some light on the origins of his other most famous image: that of the wrestler Andre the Giant. And, to hear Fairey tell it, it's a wonder movie director John Carpenter hasn't also hit him with copyright lawsuit. Fairey considers his experiment with a newspaper photo of Andre the Giant -- an inherently …

If only for the moment, dedicated turn-by-turn GPS navigators like Garmin and TomTom can breathe a sigh of relief. Google is denying rumors that it plans to introduce its free turn-by-turn GPS navigation service to iPhone users anytime soon. Reports surfaced on Thursday quoting a Google executive speaking about plans to bring such a service to other mobile platforms during a London press conference. Denying the reports, a Google spokesperson tells PCWorld: “We did not say we would bring it to iPhone, we said to date we’ve had it on Android and that in the future it may come …

Twitter on Friday announced the acquisition of a small Seattle-based wireless technology company named Cloudhopper. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it’s sure to be tiny. In a blog post, Twitter says it’s been working with Cloudhopper for eight months. The top microblogging platform also now claims to process upwards of a billion SMS tweets per month – a number that continues to grow exponentially around the world. Twitter says the deal will help it “further grow and scale our SMS service,â€� while allowing it “to connect directly to mobile carrier networks in countries all over the …

From Facebook to Foursquare, The New York Times looks at the new culture of information sharing, and the companies betting their success on consumers’ willingness to go along for the (sure to be bumpy) ride. “A wave of Web start-ups aims to help people indulge their urge to divulge,â€� writes reporter Brad Stone. “These start-ups are exploiting a mood of online openness, despite possible hidden dangers.â€� Chris Conley, a technology and civil liberties fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, tells Stone: “People are not necessarily thinking about how long this information will stick around, or how it could …