Today's headlines are filled with the usual obsessions: bank risks, online video, iPhone's and search.

What I find interesting about today's market dynamics is the dichotomy between Silicon Valley, where everything's gravy and people think it's still easy to get rich -- and the rest of the world, where people are worried about their state or country going bankrupt and making a dime is very tough.

Here's the news for today:

• As we predicted a while ago, YouTube would go to HTML5 soon. It has now, with a mobile version of YouTube (TechCrunch).
• Fast Company says Twitter now has the world's fastest growing search engine. But Silicon Alley Insider begs to differ, saying the numbers are inflated. 
• Speaking of Twitter, it can get you in a lot of trouble. A CNN Senior Editor is leaving the company following a tweet in which she praised Hezbollah leader Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. Say that three times, very fast (Mediaite).
• It was only a matter of time before we got naked pictures of the "Sexy Russian Spy" (Mediaite). “I found her Russian accent such a turn-on,” says her ex-husband.
• Meanwhile, back to the economy. A reader of Jim Sinclair's Mineset has pointed out that the banks being seized by the FDIC had their assets inflated by 20 to 80% (MineSet). Amazing stuff, that is.
• Speaking of greedy, lying banks. Yes, the European stress tests probably are a joke (Bloomberg). 
• "American Dream Elusive for New Generation," declares the New York Times, profiling a recent college grad. And then you read that da guy lives in a "comfortable suburb West of Boston," he's pictured with a nice road bike and a computer, and he turned down a job for $40,000 per year. Shall I play the violin on my small pinky?
• They've picked an English ref for the World Cup final (Telegraph). Hmm, it's hard to figure out who he'll be more biased against, the Dutch or the Spanish.
• Bond market signals depression, nobody cares (Telegraph).
• Pharma giant Merck is closing 16 factilities (WSJ).They just don't make drugs like they used to.
• Greece "Paralyzed By Strike" ahead of key pension vote (WSJ). Let them eat Souvlaki!
• Experimental solar aircraft makes a historical overnight flight (BusinessWeek). Yes -- a solar night flight. I had trouble figuring it out to. Add in the fact that it averaged 26 miles-per-hour, and it becomes a real head-scratcher.
• The next iPod Touch will include most of the features of the iPhone 4, says this reporter (CNET). Yes, that means all of the features except for the phone -- which doesn't really work that well anyway.

Millions of people yesterday had to resort to verbal communication with friends and colleagues in addition to returning to actual, productive work as Twitter was down for several hours. We're not sure, but this may have resulted in a slight, although temporary, uptick in the global economy.

Meanwhile, the techno-pundits are also all over the fact that the Twitter is moving into the geo-location business. Obviously they have to do this, given the popularity of rising social networking company Foursquare.

Now, I'm not a big geo-location guy. Maybe because that's because I'm worried that if I tweet that I'm out of town, somebody will rob my house. Or maybe it's just because I don't want people to know where I am.

The Twitter blog notes that geolocation is especially timely with the World Cup. I'm trying to figure out this spin. You mean, you need the right technology tool to tell people in the office that you are blowing off work to watch the World Cup?

In the interest in geo-location disclosure: I will note to readers that I'm technically on vacation this week so updates will be sporadic, at best. Here's a clue: At some point, I will be checking into a Broadway show, and possibly a beach on the Atlantic.

Yesterday I remarked about the proliferation of bad news. Well, here's some good news: The NYPD did an incredible job defusing a bomb in Times Square, conducting a quick investigation, and rounding up a potential suspect. Amazing if you think about the alternative. Heroic execution. Not only was there heroic execution on the part of the police in diffusing the bomb and launching a quick investigation, but if they got the right guy, it has a Hollywood twist: They nabbed him as the plane was about to take off. Here's more on that story, as well as other stuff going on in the busy world:

• Times Square bomb plot suspect arrested at last second (CNN). I think he's lucky Jason Bourne wasn't on the plane.
• The suspect allegedly drove to the airport packing a 9MM gun (NPR). I'm ready to see the movie. Now.
• Times Square bomb, oil spill complicate White House agenda (Washington Post). Nobody says it was easy being the President of the United States.
• Bomb suspect may have been targeting military recruiters (Washington Post).
• What we know about the suspect (The Atlantic).
• Shifting gears to market action: More Euro-melting triggered this morning's swoon (WSJ).
• Think you understand the sovereign debt crisis? If not, just take a quick look at this chart, courtesy of Pimco (Business Insider).
• Just when it looks like the VIX has collapsed -- yes, that's the time to sell (Bloomberg BusinessWeek).
• Apple policy said to trigger investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (Bloomberg). Only one entity can stop god: the government.
• Apple feels the heat from the FTC. Maybe it's time to pull a switcheroo? (Electronista)
• Ning is going to stay free for teachers (New York Times). Great, now do you know anybody that uses Ning? Any teachers? Right, didn't think so....
• YouTube is developing a self-serve rental model (MediaPost). Netflix executives must be taking notice.
• Apparently there is a black-market for IP addresses (Infoworld). "Psst.. hey buddy... wanna buy 72.145.228.27!?"
• Was wondering what the local snowpack was like. I found this cool site (NOAA). At least they put some of my tax dollars where I want them.
• Things you learn without running water (The Daily Green). Some of them, I just don't want to know.
• Twitter has launched its "embed Tweet" program (HuffingtonPost). More evidence that civilization will be ending as we know it.

Another day, more Twitter. Are you annoyed? Fine, so am I. But you see, if you are a budding manic techno-bloggo--analy-journalist like myself, you need to cover this stuff. There's this thing called Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which is why most people on the Internet write about Twitter. For those of you who don't know what Twitter is: It's a software application designed to make the world even more manic and ADD-driven by encouraging people to broadcast any thought they've ever had into the Internet via the use of text messaging. I break down the Twitter camps into three kinds of people: 1) The people who are addicted to it 2) The people who hate it 3) The greedy bastards who want to make a lot of money on it.

Well, Twittermania has taken full hold in Silicon Valley. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Techmeme, a news aggregation site frequented by technology trade journalists, VCs, and PR people, now dedicates nearly half its front page to Twitter news, including putting direct links to the Twitter company blog above the fold. For example, here are the links today just from Techmeme:

• Twitter will have an official Android App (TechCrunch)
• Sorry Bit.ly, Twitter confirms it will launch its own link shortener (TechCrunch)
• Twitter makes itself more useful (NY Times Bits)
• The details: How Twitter's newfangled revenue model will work (VentureBeat)
• Twitter does 19 billion searches per month, beating Yahoo & Bing (Searchengineland)
• Tweet preservation (Twitter Blog)

Okay, I feel a bit nauseous. The direct links to the Twitter blog put me over the top.

Welcome to Tuesday's news brew, where we wrap up the world's business news. It's a busy day, from Baklava Bailouts to Twitter Tweets. The markets are selling off, from stocks to commodities, though the general stock market selloff is quite subdued. Let's start with Twitter, which we covered in an earlier post, but has plenty of opinions around the horn:

• Want to catch up on the latest Twitter "monetization" announcement? Start by reading Jeremiah Owyang's excellent analysis (Web Strategy).
• Twitter has launched Ads -- where better to read about that then Ad Age?
• John Battelle has some thoughts (Searchblog). They're not fully formed though -- he says they are "developing."
• Twitter to roll out advertising (WSJ).
• Mary Meeker is bullish. On Mobile. Big surprise there, eh?
• An Android "iPad killer" is on the way. Will that boost Adobe?
• Greece is trying to lay off the Baklava Bailout by selling more debt (Bloomberg). Isn't funny how the answer to bad debt is always more debt?
• Citigroup took at $15B loss on "liquidity puts," according to Congressional testimony. Sounds like they should have been called "lack of liquidity puts."
• The U.S. trade gap widened more than expected (BusinessWeek).
• Chinese growth may accelerate (BusinessWeek). That's right. They can grow even faster.
• Oil sells off as supplies balloon (Reuters)
• Here's a cool map of U.S. trade sanctions around the globe (VisualEconomics.com)

Well, they did it: Twitter has announced a business model. It's called advertising. Heard of it before? They are calling it "Promoted Tweets." What's interesting is that the social media company (can we now call them a social marketing company?) has figured out a way to weave sponsored tweets into the fabric of the system: That is users, can essentially vote about which ads stay or go. Sponsored Tweets will be bought and plugged into the system, clearly marked as sponsored. This will happen via the search page, where sponsors will bid for search terms, a la Google. Users can treat them like regular tweets -- for example, retweet them -- or ignore them. Posts that get sufficiently ignored will presumably go away, according to Twitter. The initial sponsors -- Twitter calls then "innovative advertising partners" -- will include Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America. I am quickly imagining the Twitter-scape littered with Red Bull-fueled promotion artists.

Sometimes America can be myopic, self-centered, and oblivious. Today is one of those days when many of the news outlets are focusing on Twitter, the Toyota recalls, and Taylor Swift. With more chaos brewing in the Middle East, it's a good time to remember that there are some major wars underway. I only say this because these are disturbing times, and we have to be reminded of the fact of the dangers of global political conflicts. Keep it in mind. Let me catch you up to date on what's going on "out there," as well as other stuff:

• Violence in Israel is flaring up again, following the reopening of a synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City (The Guardian).
• The Obama adminstration and Benjamin Netanyahu are headed for a showdown (NPR)
• George Mitchell's Israel trip is on hold (Politico)
• What does it mean for Iran? Well, the eminent bombing rumors that have circulated may be put on hold. (Huffington Post)
• Several folks think Biden's trip to Israel was aimed at discussing the bombing of Iran. Instead, it devolved into a critique of Israel's settlement policies. (Politico)
• The US and EU are calling for a "clear response" to Iran. Some believe that bombing isn't yet off the table. (AFP)
• Iran is standing its ground (Tehran Times)
• Zero Hedge technical take predicts a  market crash in April (Zero Hedge)
• U.S. Housing starts declined 5.9% in February (Bloomberg). Do housing start numbers in the dead of winter really matter?
• The Fed wants to "avoid lower inflation" (Bloomberg). Isn't that another euphemism for printing money?
• U.S. lawmakers are going to press China for action on currency (Reuters). Yippee! Trade War with China! Just what we all need!
• Sony has signed a $250M deal with the Michael Jackson estate on forthcoming albums involving both previously unreleased material and famiar ones. (Wall Street Journal). Just beat it!
• Core Strength Training for Men. (Wall Street Journal). I just think it's funny that you can find this stuff on a Wall Street Journal page.
• Is China-Google a lose-lose scenario? (Associated Press)
• Google's biggest blunder: Not letting Microsoft buy Yahoo (Slate). I can go with it.
• Vitamin D linked to lower heart disease risk (L.A. Times)

Parsing today's news, I see that Twitter has announced a new platform that does some stuff. I wish I could tell you what it was, but the press reports are so vague that I don't understand! For example, VentureBeat reports that "Twitter CEO Ev Willams demonstrated a new platform today that will spread the microblogging network's proifles, tweets, and possibly advertising across the Web." Okay. First, why is the VentureBeat reporter referring to Evan Willams as "Ev." Is this to show they're buddies? Sheesh, amateur hour. Next, what the heck  is this thing? Tweets will be everywhere. Aren't they already? And how are they doing this? Some other takes on the Twitter "news," which I think was announced at the rapidly devolving SXSW (South By Southwest) conference:

• TechCrunch's Michael Arrington is cringing at the fact that Twitter wants to do good. He should.
• Twitter has made some sort of announcement on its blog. "We’ve developed a new set of frameworks for adding this Twitter experience anywhere on the web." ARGHHGHG. Can somebody actually tell me what this thing does!!!
• Ahh, now this is my cup of tea: The Evan Williams keynote actually sucked, and people bailed. (CNET)
• If you want to ask real questions (apparently the interviewer at SXSW didn't), here are some on Twitter itself (Mashable)

Alrighty, Twitter, everybody's talking about you. That's great. Now get on with it and do an IPO, to show that the technology markets can still drive the American economy.

I am racking my brain trying to decide what to make of the deal in which Yahoo has announced a partnership with Twitter to more deeply integrate the two platforms.On the business side, there doesn't appear to be much near-term impact, as no money is changing hands or set to change hands. My first conclusion: What an awful press release. The headline is "@yahoo + @twitter Sitting in a Tree... T.W.E.E.T.I.N.G." Seriously. That's the headline. What are we in Kindergarten? On the technical side,  the deal is an acknowledgement by Yahoo that it will go with social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter rather than developing its own social networking platform. What's does this mean on the businsess side? I have no idea, but this "deal" is remarkable for its lack of any meaningful business exchange, such as money, revenue-sharing, salesforces, e.t.c. As far as the two platforms being integrated, it's somewhat of a meaningless announcement. The Web is integrating itself. Social networking services are about as integrated as you want them to be. What do I mean by that? Well, because of the proliferation of Twitter APIs and its integration with Facebook and tools like TweetMeme and TweetDeck, you can pretty much plug in Twitter wherever you want, right? The Yahoo announcement comes down to nothing more than them acknowledging that they need to open their platform to more successful social networking platforms, rather than trying to build social networking tools themselves. What about further down the road? On the money side, I imagine that Twitter has some vision of monetizing its feeds here, and possibly plugging into Yahoo's big marketing relationships in the future. Yahoo, meanwhile, wants the traffic. But there are some crucial questions here: Will the existing Yahoo advertisers want to advertise next to Twitter content, or would they rather be placed next to premium content? And how do you count the "Twitter traffic"? Is it the same as a page view on a Reuters story? I am skeptical of the business model here, primarily because most social networks so far have failed to lure the big advertisers, who aren't sure about advertising in the wilds of social networks.Look at what happened with MySpace. Third question: What exactly is Twitter. And what does it mean to be integrated with Yahoo? Well, Twitter is a messaging platform. So, Yahoo has basically decided to integrate a new third-party messaging platform, without paying them any money. I think that's all the deal comes down to. Read on for more news on the topic: Yahoo dramatically expands Twitter relationship (AllThingsD). Yahoo gets closer to Twitter (New York Times) Yahoo to announce broad Twitter partnership (PaidContent.org)