An interesting article was included in the Hitwise US newsletter. It talks about the trafficÂ? trends on social networking sites, compares them with Wikipedia, and looks at how those trends are affected by the school year. There is nothing suprising about the trends, except maybe how significant the start of the school year and finals are on the traffic of these sites.

Lately, several of our articles have focussed on bridging the gap between mobile devices and online applications (weren’t these called websites before?). We aren’t the only ones talking about this hot topic. While the ink was still drying on my article about DodgeballÂ? and how that property would help Google release a mobile version of YouTube more quickly, Techcrunch had a post about a YouTube and Verizon partnership.Â? Originally, a post on Techcrunch (that I can’t find - have you evered searched for a post on that site?!) suggested it would be December ‘07 when a mobile YouTube would be released.

Since the Peanut Butter Manifesto, I made a comment about Yahoo! looking to move more into the development of mobile apps, and similar to Dodgeball, Yahoo! has released their own group texting site, Mixd. A comment by Natali Del Conte is a little strange: It is a little surprising that Yahoo! wants in on this game but then again, why not? Everything is going to move in this direction, and it’s important to have a smaller test site before attempting this with something under the actual Yahoo! brand. I may not bleed purple and orange, but I think Yahoo! is positioned well to move forward in these new directions, and I don’t really think the peanut butter is spread too thin.

Finally, Paul Kedrosky compares the reach across mobile and PC for popular sites. Weather and sports top the list, and Gmail is a suprisingly strong mobile app, a testament to the types of people using the not-as-popular emailing service. What might be the biggest suprise is MapQuest making the list. Again, this is an example of the average user and their familiarity with the product - it isn’t broke, and they aren’t fixing it.

Update: Here is an article on GigaOm about a Yahoo!/Nokia deal. The article links to a previous post on GigaOm that talks about Mobile Messaging startups.

Security is something that has to concern all of us. With incredible increases in spamming and fishing, fake wireless networks, and a variety of other attacks on security, it’s important to know some of the most common mistakes made and how to avoid them.

A great, although lengthy, article from Dark Reading:

The 10 Most Overlooked Aspects of Security

While I was looking for information for this article, I stopped in on the Wikipedia page that has a list of Google’s properties. At the time of the purchase, which according to this article was May 2005, I’m sure I didn’t really appreciate the magnitude of the purchase. For those of you who don’t know or remember, dodgeballÂ? is one of the first mobile social networks.

Lately, several ofÂ? articles have been written aboutÂ? the importance of mobile networks,Â? especially for the bigÂ? 3Â? Internet companies. WithÂ? over a year working with the dodgeball network, it’s something that Google is obviously well underway in exploring, and it makes the implementation of a mobileÂ? YouTube easier and more lucrative - several of the mistakes from dodgeball (not that any are known personally, but there are always lessons to be learned) can now be avoided.

I’m suprised more hasn’t been said or announced about this, or have I just been under a rock?

Several different applications that formerlyÂ? ran on your desktop have moved to an online platform thatÂ? allows for increased accessibility by the creator of the content and distribution or sharing of the content. ImagesÂ? and videos are obvious examples, with interactive slideshows of still imagesÂ? and video clips beingÂ? passed around online in record numbers.Â? Google has their started developing their own business-type suite of applications, withÂ? Google Documents and Spreadsheets, Google PageÂ? Creator, and Google CalendarÂ? creating the foundation of a Microsoft Office Suite of applications all based online. It is a widely discussed head-on-collision between the two Internet giants, and is represents a strong indication of the push for these types of products to move away from the desktop, if not entirely, at least partially. So, why wouldn’t the very operating system (OS)Â? that your computer runs on do the same?

Whether they like it or not, the anti-Microsofters of the world have to accept that the Windows OS is still the number one operating system. Combined with the fact that it is also not an open-source project, the idea of another company, or in this case more of an organization, becoming significant in the arena with an open-source, web-based OS has to be considered a threat. To this point, there hasn’t been a real, significant attempt at developing an online OS, but this would be theÂ? perfect final piece for a company intersted in enteringÂ? the competition. Especially if the efforts of this company, based in Spain, show any real success or promise.

Of course Google would be an obvious candidate to pickÂ? as a potential future purchaser of this company or any other company thatÂ? can successfullyÂ? develop an online application that might notÂ? act as a full-fledge replacement for the Windows OS, but has the potential to grow into one. Just to keep things interesting, I’m going to throw out another suggestion that might seem a little wild and crazy, and that’s a Yahoo! purchase of this type of company.

In the wake of the Peanut Butter Manifesto, as it has come to be known as, there are likely to be a great deal of changes in the company. According to an article on Techcrunch, Brad Garlinghouse has been put in charge of a working group to review how the points in the memo can be put into action. What better way to consolidate the entire collection of Yahoo! properties than building them on top of their very own OS? Yahoo! has enough users and could easily start aligning themselves with ISP’s in a way that would promote the effort. It’s going to be a battle to re-create and amalgamate everything, how much more work would it really include if you throw in a custom OS along with Windows, Linux/Unix, and Mac OS/X?

The free, open source project is looking to launch in early 2007. There are currently about 80,000 registered users/computersÂ? with the server-based application installed. Security risks by business customers is one of the reasons that this a server app. It is based on JavaScript and will run on almost any browser.