Is that MySpace in the rear-view mirror, Twitter users may wonder? Why, yes, it is, at least in the UK. According to Hitwise, the web research company, the number of UK visits to Twitter exceeded that for MySpace in the UK for the last week of August.

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Over the past few weeks we’ve seen countless stories about the “Oprah effect” on Twitter–TechCrunch suggested more than one million people signed up and many a blog linked to Hitwise data that suggested the talk-show doyenne’s endorsement of the service led to a 43 percent spike in Twitter traffic.

While those numbers are important, the breathless reports have not accounted for what people do after they sign up for a Twitter account.

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The evidence continues to mount: Craig Newmark is killing the newspaper industry.

According to new data from Hitwise, traffic to online classified advertising sites increased 84 percent in February from a year ago. The sector has seen positive growth in all but one month over the last three years. And while hardly the only player in the game, the single biggest beneficiary of the trend is Craigslist. According to Hitwise, of the top 100 classified ad Web sites, all but 3 were localized versions of Craigslist.

And the company’s domination is growing: a year ago, 12 of the top 100 were not related to Craigslist.

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MapQuest was once the unquestioned leader among online mapping services. And while others like Google (GOOG) Maps or Microsoft’s (MSFT) Live Search Maps offer a more modern interface and far more features than MapQuest, the latest data from Hitwise show that MapQuest still commands almost 40 percent of the market. Even on the fast-moving Internet, old habits clearly only die very slowly.

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We recently wrote about how you should probably be more nervous about the data your ISP is collecting rather than what Google is collecting, because your ISP has access to a lot more data, and the data it has isn’t data that you chose to give, as in the case of Google. Plus, ISPs have a long history of selling that data. Now, a new study is showing that most people have no idea that their ISPs track and sell their data, with many believing that an ISP would need to first let them know if they were doing that. In fact, many people are quite concerned about how that data would be used, not realizing that it’s already being sold. And, of course, it’s not just being sold to ad companies like NebuAd and Phorm, but to Web site-tracking firms like Compete and Hitwise.

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Well, OK, not that big a shocker.

Google’s share of the U.S. search-query market improved to 65.1% in November from 64.49% in October and 61.84% a year ago, according to data released today by Hitwise.

Yahoo’s share slipped to 21.21%, down from 21.65% in October and 22.43% a year ago.

Microsoft’s share dropped to 7.09%, down from 7.42% a month ago and 9.82% a year ago.

Ask.com’s share declined to 4.63% from 4.76% a month ago, but up up from 4.23% a year ago. Read the rest of this post