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Since then, their site, Texts From Last Night has received over 3 million text messages.

The Michigan-based friends from college just released a new TFLN book. Like the site, it chronicles the digital dispatches of those unforgettable nights most would rather not remember. We caught up with Lauren and Ben about ditching law school, quarter-life crises and lessons they’ve learned from culling through America’s text messages.

WSJ: Where did the idea for Texts From Last Night come from?
Ben Bator: Our friends used to send us text messages that were too good not to share.
Lauren Leto: I’ve gone back and deleted some of mine that were mine in the beginning when we were just started because I was so embarrassed. We tried to be anonymous, and only post the area code and text.

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Square, started by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, goes live next year and allows merchants to swipe credit and debit cards through an iPhone attachment called a “square.”

The squares will be available for other phones, including Androids and BlackBerrys, later on, he said, and merchants will get squares for free. Visa (V), MasterCard (MA) and American Express (AXP) have already signed on.

This week, Popmoney, a service from CashEdge, went live. It’s currently available at only two financial institutions, but will expand to seven in coming months, Neal Platt, Popmoney’s senior vice president, said. (CashEdge already has various institutions as clients elsewhere, including Bank of America and Citibank.)

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Some of Mint’s 1.5 million customers took to blogs and Twitter to complain about the deal and threaten to close their accounts.

About 1,500 to 2,000 customers did jump ship, said Aaron Patzer, Mint’s CEO, most within two days of the acquisition announcement. The site also, however, added 45,000 members the same week, for a total of 1.7 million users today. (The site typically adds some 30,000 users a week.) The relaunched Mint iPhone application has been downloaded 350,000 times in the last month.

“In general, there’s been more positive than negative,” he said.

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Comments are filing in to the Federal Communications Commission’s request for input on simplifying wireless bills.

The deadline comes amid a thicket of consumer-focused fee news, from credit cards to overdraft fees. Consumer advocates are arguing for more transparency in billing, both when shopping around for plans and for existing mobile subscribers.

Filing comment Tuesday is BillShrink.com, a site that analyzes the fine print of credit card bills and user profiles to find the cheapest cellphone plan. The average consumer overspends $300 a month on her cellphone plan a year, Schwark Satyavolu, BillShrink’s co-founder and president, said. In the last five months, the site has found $800 million in potential savings on cellphone plans.

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Trading volume surged 14 percent or more last month from July at online brokerage firms Charles Schwab Corp. (SCHW), TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD) and E*Trade Financial Corp. (ETFC). Electronic trader Knight Capital Group Inc. also posted a 7.7 percent increase.

It amounts to an unusually large jump in online trading, traditionally the domain of smaller investors. “Usually, August is one of the worst months of the year,” said Richard Repetto of Sandler O’Neill Partners L.P., with volume typically falling 10 percent from July.

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The Internal Revenue Service recently unveiled their YouTube channel, irsvideos. The 12 videos have information about claiming recovery rebate credits and other tax tips.

“It’s another way for us to get information out to taxpayers,” says Terry Lemons, a spokesperson for the IRS.

The videos are produced in-house and feature actual IRS employees. Mostly, they direct people to IRS.gov, which doesn’t currently host video. The aim is to make taxpayers aware of existing tax credits and direct them toward more information about those credits, Lemons says. They’re also available in Spanish and American Sign Language.

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But Taiwan-based Ozaki, the company behind the dancing President-elect, didn’t stop there. The Obama dock is part of its iMini line, which fuses the technology of an iPod dock, radio, alarm and speakers–and fuzzy fabric.

If there isn’t music playing for the Obama doll to wobble to and fro to, then a microphone picks up ambient noise, and Obama dock will start dancing on its own. The demo model Obama sported a “Change” T-shirt and played a video of will.i.am, a noted Obama supporter.

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