■ Twitter recently announced a deal in which it will acquire blogging platform Posterous, bringing on most of Posterous’ engineers, product managers and additional talent. Posterous Spaces will remain up and running without disruption until further notice, and the company ensured that users would have ample notice before any changes are made.

■ Location-based service Loopt has been purchased by Green Dot Corp., a provider of retailer pre-paid cards that will use Loopt to develop mobile wallet and payment services. Green Dot is paying $43.4 million in cash in a deal expected to close in April.

■ Cloud-based marketing and PR software provider Vocus has acquired iContact, an email and social marketing firm used by more than 70,000 organizations, for $169 million. The acquisition will allow Vocus to add email marketing to its digital marketing suite for small and mid-sized businesses, a suite that already includes search and social marketing solutions.

■ Apple has acquired apps search company Chomp, developer of a search engine that helps users find mobile apps based on their functions rather than name only. The Chomp search engine can be accessed on the Web or via mobile apps for a variety of different platforms.

■ Groupon recently confirmed its acquisition of travel startup Uptake for a purchase price of between $10 and $20 million. The entire 20-person Uptake team will be joining Groupon’s Palo Alto office and is expected to spearhead travel and local search initiatives, but Groupon reports that none of Uptake’s code will be reused.

■ Social enterprise software provider Buddy Media recently announced its acquisition of Brighter Option, a Facebook Ads API partner that provides social ad management software. The move allows Buddy Media to offer social publishing, applications, analytics, commerce and paid advertising in a unified software suite.

■ Cloud hosting provider Rackspace has announced its acquisition of SharePoint911, a SharePoint consulting and training service. The purchase is intended to provide SharePoint hosting solutions along with expert services to Rackspace’s enterprise clients.

Read more 'Net Briefs from the May 2012 issue of Website Magazine: New and Improved iPad - Mobile App Watch - Twitter Ads on the Go - Startups to Watch - Lost in Translation - Bing's Organic Phase  - It's About Time(line)  - OpenStack Opens Up - A Patented Conflict - Mind Games  - Girl Power - The Hacker Way