Welcome to the post-Labor Day, back-to-work, and school syndrome.

It's no secret that instant messaging via PCs, mobile phones, and wireless devices like the BlackBerry, is wildly popular and extremely helpful in expediting both work and play.

Earlier this week, a Web developer who works for Friendster got fired for mentioning Friendster in her blog, Troutgirl. Joyce Park tells CNET that she'd only mentioned the social networking site in three postings to her blog. All three references included information already in the public domain.

Hitwise today reported that traffic to the Bush and Kerry Web sites is spiking in key states with big blocks of undecided voters. These states include Ohio, Oregon, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Some movement today in the behavioral marketing arena: Trafficmac and Revenue Science have entered a technology alliance designed to enable multi-site publishers to break out ad packages by site and audience segment for inventory management purposes.

Microsoft this week joins Apple, and a slew of other companies, in the online music game. The software giant has been planning to launch an online music store for some time now. On Thursday, its store will open for business on the MSN Internet network. The music store is part of a bigger launch of Microsoft's latest generation of Windows Media Player.

So, the Republicans are about to hit the Big Apple and many folks have already cleared out of town. Those of us who plan to hang around are figuring out how we'll observe, or participate in the action. And the week promises plenty of action-from the parties and the protests, to the hucksterism and blustery media coverage.

There's an integrated marketing services agency in Austin, Texas called T3 - The Think Tank.

Some news from PointRoll today-the rich media provider has introduced a new polling feature called Pollster. It allows Web users to participate in polls on pop culture trivia, movies, brands, or news events and compare their responses.

AOL's got a decent thing going with its instant messaging client, otherwise known as AIM. AOL racks up some 30 million unique users per month and it's trying to find a way to generate revenue against all those eyeballs.