Yesterday's news that Nokia acquired location based social network Plazes, was worthy only of making our Pilgrim's Picks. Today's news that Nokia has acquired mobile platform Symbian -and plans to make it open source-is definitely worthy of its own post. Nokia already owned 48% of Symbian , but is willing to pay around $410 million in cash to acquire the remaining 52%. So, what's Nokia's plan for Symbian?

If LimitNone LLC wins the lawsuit it just filed against Google, it could send a warning signal to other start-ups: don't show Google your wares, because it will steal your technology out from under you. That's effectively what LimitNone is saying, with its lawsuit alleging Google stole its system for migrating Microsoft Outlook customers to Gmail.

Either I'm really running high on the productivity scale or it's a really slow news day. Knowing me, it ain't my productivity. So here are the select few stories that weren't quite worth a post, but are worth a look: Revaluing Social Networks : TechCrunch looks at another way to assign valuations to social networks. He's calculated the average Internet ad spend per user in each country,

Some Monday's just seem to go like this: For the rest of us, we take it in our stride and read today's Picks: Before the "Google Trends kills [insert web intelligence firm here]" discussions get out of hand, it's worth noting that the new web site traffic data from Google is pretty inaccurate . There's an influx of SEO advice from dear old Google. Some of it basic )but good( and some of it needing some additional translation from Rand Fishkin .

If the above headline were true, Google would have found itself at the bottom of the annual Harris Interactive Reputation Quotient poll, along with all of the major airlines. Fortunately, for us and them, Google doesn't charge for its search engine and, when it comes to taking care of its employees, leads corporate America . Largely for its reputation for treating workers well, Google claimed the No. 1 spot from Microsoft Corp, which fell to 10th place.

The WSJ is reporting Google's Android-aka Gphone-is likely to miss its target launch date and instead will not be ready until the fourth quarter. It's tough enough developing an entirely new mobile platform, but when you rely on others to actually build the thing, you have one big headache on your hands. 'some cellular carriers and makers of programs that work with Android are struggling to meet that schedule, people familiar with the situation say.

'and the PPC and banner ad crowd goes wild! The IAB has announced that Internet Advertising Revenues are up over 18% year over year, or $5.8 Billion smackaroos for the first quarter of 2008. That's just off the pace of the $5.9 Billion record set in Q4 '07. Source: )excluding Borat( PwC/IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report ) www.iab.net ( The really good news for internet marketers? Growth is expected to continue. Just listen to what Randall Rothenberg,

Happy summer solstice )or for you in the Southern hemisphere, happy winter solstice(! It's the longest )shortest( day of the year, and it's a Fridaywhat could be better? Oh, I know, some linky goodness! Last we heard from comScore, Facebook and MySpace were neck and neck worldwide: now they're not. Facebook is beating MySpace And Facebook looks to keep growing as they start their foray into China , which claims to be the world's biggest Web market.

The 2008 US Presidential Election truly represents the first time the Internet will push a specific candidate "over the top" and on to the glory of being endlessly criticized by the public, roasted on SNL and all of the other wonderful benefits that come with the office. So, why am I predicting guaranteeing that Barack Obama will reign supreme )thanks to you no less(? Because you represent one of the record-breaking 46% of Americans that have used the internet,

Today Google launched Google Trends for Websites . This is the search giants first foray into competitive research, and comparisons are being drawn to Alexa and Quantacast. Barry Schwartz points out a good use for the new tool at SearchEngineLand.com : Now, if you think like a link builder - you can use this tool to find sites that are within your "neighborhood" or industry. So if I want to find link partners for the Search Engine Roundtable , I enter in seroundtable.com,

Congratulations! You made it through another week! As your reward, you get to enjoy these great Picks: It seems AP is no longer pursuing the Drudge Retort for copyright infringement, but it still sounds like its not ready to give up on licensing AP content to bloggers. The Huffington Post is putting its recently raised capital to good use. It plans to expand into local news across the US , starting with Chicago.

I have to chuckle at reports teenagers in England are using Google Earth to locate residential swimming pools, then organize illegal late-night dips and parties. Here's the vision that came to mind: Seriously, we're talking England here, not California. Residential pools are very rare, with most homes more likely to have a kiddies "paddling pool" than anything useful for an adult. Still,

"Most people who don't get the decision see Yahoo as merely an abbreviation on the NASDAQ ticker. The people who have poured their blood sweat and tears into building that brand do not. " Terry Howard. Marketing Pilgrim reader Terry Howard had a valid point, when commenting on my post about what Yahoo had given up, when it opted for Google over Microsoft. He actually had me thinking-maybe a deal with Google really does favor the employees,

You know that just about any mention of "reputation" and "Google" is going to get my attention, so I was eager to hear about Ziggs.com . My local CBS affiliate WRAL, teased me that the new service will tell you who is searching for your name on Google. No way! No, really. There's just no way. You see, whether WRAL has been misguided by Ziggs or just a victim of its own naivety, there's just no way that you can know about everyone that searches for your name on Google .

In college, Thursday was always like "practice Friday." Don't you miss that? Google isn't the only one trying to forestall government intervention in the latest big deal : Yang Goes to Washington for the same reason, though he has yet to meet with noted Google-deal-curmudgeon Rep. Barton. Nobody's perfect. Good on Compete for admitting it and for recalculating their data, finding that Yahoo Traffic Better Than First Reported . I'm sure Yahoo's happy to be at 18.

We're all familiar with phishing schemes: an email urging you to login to your PayPal account at this URL )which doesn't turn out to be PayPal or eBay at all(, etc. Most of us have seen enough of theseand enough horror stories circulating on the web or the nightly newsto avoid these scams. But not everyone has. A post on Google Blogoscoped details the aftermath of one such phishing expedition. After receiving an official-looking email apparently from Google AdWords,

If you have any interest in online reputation management, then you need to be in North Carolina on August 7th-that's when I'll host my first ever Online Reputation Management Workshop . I want to keep the event small, so that I can spend quality time sharing the online reputation management tactics I've developed over the years. The workshop is open to just 20 people. If you're responsible for your company's brand/reputation,

Last month I posted about patterns between men and women and their patterns of making friends on social networking sites. Rapleaf has another study that gives more insights into which sites are popular between the sexes and across age groups. People on social media sites are usually in the age range of 14 to 24 years old. Rapleaf's study focused on 49.3 million people in their database who are aged 14-74.

Just when it looked like services such as iTunes and Netflix were going to define the online video rental business, along comes YouTube. With the Google-owned video site announcing a new, larger 1GB file size limit for its content partners, YouTube is pushing closer to offering feature-length films. From the YouTube memo, posted on Silicon Alley Insider : Long Form Content You now will be able to upload and monetize videos in your account that are longer than 10 minutes.

If you travel )and blog( you know that returning to the office is a dreaded event. Not only has the email backed-up, but so have the blog posts. Rather than keep you all hanging-while I dig out-here's what's buzzing today. If Google can have "Gmail" then Yahoo can have "Ymail." Google Webmaster Central is hosting a free live WebEx chat today at 5pm EDT . Despite failing to launch at the planned time,