Facebook has set itself up as a huge source of visits to news sites and it now seems intent on establishing itself as a place where people not only find stories that friends “like” but those that other members are recommending too.

A weekly look at a story that is defining the news.

The Associated Press and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) finally came to terms on a new deal this week that lets Google News continue to host AP articles on its site. The AP told us it was “pleased” with the agreement—but it’s not exactly clear what the AP actually gained from Google after so many years of bluster.

Some of the stories people are talking about this morning:

»  Twitter’s Evan Williams says the company’s decision to launch its own mobile apps is paying off: mobile usage is up 62 percent since mid-April and 16 percent of all new Twitter users now start out on their phones, up from five percent before the company’s shift in strategy. [Twitter Blog]

»  The NYT profiles YouTube, declaring that the Google-owned site is an “increasingly fruitful place for advertisers.” The write-up includes the factoid that YouTube’s revenue has more than doubled each year for the last three years. [New York Times]

The connected-TV space is getting HOT. Manufacturer platforms like Samsung Internet@TV and Sony Internet TV are set to mix with Google TV and Yahoo Connected TV, while the UK’s Freeview TVs await connectivity upgrades through Dbook 7 and Canvas, and European broadcasters team for an industry-wide HbbTV standard.

In the coming melee, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) now says it’s gained carriage for its chosen implementation with Vestel, a Turkish TV manufacturer that Yahoo says is Europe’s largest telly maker with 16 percent of the LCD market.

Sony (NYSE: SNE) unveiled a connected TV running Google (NSDQ: GOOG) TV at the IFA show in Berlin. TechRadar has the lo-down and pics, revealing Google TV to be an integrated part of Sony Internet TV that offers search for web, TV shows, YouTube and more.

As these videos show, there is also a number of apps, including a Chrome browser used to browse the web while TV scales down to picture-in-picture…

Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and the Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) stepped to the precipice of blackout Armageddon—and wisely took a giant step back. Instead of risking their standing with subscribers and viewers, they put away the harsh rhetoric, kept working through the midnight deadline Wednesday and made a deal that keeps ABC owned-and-operated stations, ESPN and a host of Disney cable nets on Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) Cable and Bright House Networks without a blip.

The new deal, described in the announcement as Disney’s “most expansive content agreement to date,” moves beyond broadcast and cable to broadband, gaining berths for ESPN3 and creating a “TV Everywhere” option for ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU.

In the last year, generic searches for e-readers have doubled, while Kindle-related searches have increased eight fold. With the smaller, sleeker and cheaper Kindle 3 now available Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) looks set to further capitalise on its position as a market leader in the e-reader market.

Is Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) changing its approach to online spending? The company, which had said as recently as a year ago that it was willing to invest 5 percent to 10 percent of its operating income on its search business for up to five years, wasn’t willing to spend enough to become AOL’s search partner. In fact, Microsoft’s bid wasn’t even competitive enough to bring negotiations down to the wire—and AOL chose Google as its partner months before its contract with the company was even up.

Inflection, an under-the-radar startup which owns genealogy website Archives.com, has raised $30 million in a first round of funding. The company charges users $39.95 a year to access historical records and build their own family trees on the site and it is apparently doing very well, despite competition from sites like Ancestry.com.