Microsoft has previewed its new search engine called Bing, formerly known as Kumo and is set to launch it on Wednesday June 3.

Microsoft calls Bing a “Decision Engine” that initially will focus on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition and finding a local business.

Microsoft says it developed Bing as a tool to help people more easily navigate through the “information overload” that has come to characterize many of today’s search experiences.

A comScore study focused on search engines found that as many as 30 percent of searches are abandoned without a satisfactory result. The study also found that about two-thirds of the remaining searches required a refinement or requery on the search results page.

“Today, search engines do a decent job of helping people navigate the Web and find information, but they don’t do a very good job of enabling people to use the information they find,” said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO.

“When we set out to build Bing, we grounded ourselves in a deep understanding of how people really want to use the Web. Bing is an important first step forward in our long-term effort to deliver innovations in search that enable people to find information quickly and use the information they’ve found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions.”

The number of online adults who have used online classified ads has more than doubled in the past four years, according to a new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Almost half (49%) of internet users say they have used online classified sites, compared with 22 percent of online adults who had done so in 2005.

On any given day about 9 percent of Internet users visit online classified sites, up from 4 percent in 2005.

Craigslist is by far the most used online classified website in the United States. In March 2009, classified sites averaged 53.8 million visitors, up from 7 percent in February. Craigslist had 42.2 million unique visitors in the month of March.

Craigslist has launched in over 500 cities in 50 different countries since April 2009.

Online retail sales in the U.S. may have reached the bottom for 2009, but a return to double-digit growth of previous years is unlikely with the current economy, according to comScore.

In a Webinar about the online economy in the first quarter of this year, comScore compared zero growth with a 3 percent drop in the holiday fourth quarter.

“Although online retail spending growth was flat in the first quarter, this does represent a slight improvement over the disappointing fourth quarter,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

“These results would appear to indicate that the economy is finally exhibiting some signs of stability, and with consumer confidence beginning to improve, I’m optimistic that the online channel is poised for a return to positive growth in the second half of 2009.”

Concerns over unemployment, consumers continuing to save and slightly higher gas prices are still slowing online retail sales, which continue to do better than traditional retail stores.

Understandably, job security was the main economic concern named by respondents from all income levels, with mid-to low-income earners equally worried about prices.

Still, flat online retail sales performed better than an 8 percent decrease in first quarter retail sales.

“Clearly, ecommerce is picking up market share,” Fulgoni said. “If (retailers) can focus on ecommerce, that’s where the dollars seem to be shifting in retail.”

Sears Holdings has announced the launch of social networking sites MySears and MyKmart.

MySears and MyKmart allow users to share their insights, experiences and product reviews by creating a dialogue between the retailers and their customers through discussion forums, blog entries, ratings, reviews, polls and surveys.

Users can create a profile, upload photos, share experiences and connect with others. Users help Sears and Kmart as well as fellow customers by writing product reviews, participating in discussions and contributing ideas.

An “Ideas” feature allows users to contribute recommendations, which are then commented on by other members and considered for implementation by Sears Holdings’ management. Nearly all content on MySears and MyKmart will be written by customers.

“The MySears and MyKmart social networking communities offer customers a highly-versatile venue to connect with other like-minded individuals and get informed advice on their purchases,” said Rob Harles, vice president, Community, Sears Holdings.

“In addition, it gives them the platform to have their voices heard and help us make vital improvements to our stores and services.”

As reports of the swine flu outbreak reached beyond Mexican borders and into the U.S. late last week, the Internet has been buzzing at a high level about risks, symptoms and other updates for information

The volume of conversations about the epidemic is already nearly ten times those surrounding the salmonella and peanut butter scares from earlier this winter.

The increased conversations around swine flu on Twitter, where swine flu found its way into nearly 2 percent of all tweets, are indicative of the spike in conversations around the Web.

As updates emerge hourly (the swine flu Wikipedia page was updated 60 times between 10am and 11am) response to the spread of the virus, the Centers For Disease control acted quickly, updating their homepage and creating a special section solely for updates and information on swine flu that includes key facts, related items and the ability to share/post the page to social bookmarking and social networking sites.

Buzz activity about the CDC mirrors closely the buzz surrounding both health scares.

The number of online banking customers continued to grow strongly in 2008 despite the challenging financial environment, according to comScore.

The growth was fueled by banks’ aggressive customer acquisition strategies and heightened financial interest among online banking customers wanting to keep a closer eye on their personal finances.

After several years of particularly strong growth in the use of online banking at the top 10 banks, the second half of 2007 showed the first signs of softness as sequential quarterly growth rates fell below 1 percent, but then recovered somewhat in 2008 as banks became more aggressive in their online banking customer acquisition efforts.

When asked about their satisfaction with their financial institutions, the percentage of respondents indicating they were highly satisfied with their banks (down 1%) and credit card issuers (down 3%) declined marginally compared to 2008 and were at least as high as the levels seen in 2007. The decline was more among brokerage firms, which saw their highly satisfied customers decline from 70 percent of respondents in 2008 to 58 percent in 2009.

“Given the performance of the financial markets in the past year, it’s not surprising that brokerage customers with declining balances would not be as satisfied as last year,” said Marc Trudeau, comScore senior director.

“It’s interesting that a negative halo effect was not seen with respect to banks and credit card issuers, perhaps because of the reliability of services and the outreach they provided during a time of financial strain for many customers.”

More than 60 percent of online banking customers expressed interest in free identity theft services, while free credit score monitoring appealed to 52 percent. Around 37 percent of respondents showed a strong interest in online personal financial management tools, with half indicating they were willing to pay a modest monthly fee for the services.

“That customers are asking for more services to help them manage their personal finances during these economically-challenging times is a positive sign for banks,” added Trudeau.

“It’s clear that most customers are paying close attention to their personal finances, and, consequently, for the banks that step up and provide customers with the tools they’re requesting, it’s an opportunity to both cultivate and solidify customer relationships and to potentially drive incremental revenue as well.”

The Online Trust Alliance (OTA) has given government agencies and online retailers a failing grade in preventing deceptive email and phishing scams based on its recently released analysis of email authentication adoption.

While adoption has grown over the past year, OTA found 56 percent of the top .gov sites – including Whitehouse.gov, FBI.gov, Treasury.gov and DHS.gov – still are not protecting U.S. citizens through the use of email authentication. At the same time progress has been made by other government agencies including the Census Bureau, CIA, FDIC, VA and FTC.

The OTA also found that among the major online retailers 45 percent have not adopted email authentication- leaving brands, domains, and consumers exposed to security and privacy threats.

While the OTA recognizes many brands including Amazon, Dell, Office Depot, Apple, Costco and Staples have adopted increased online security measures, many others including Sears, Victoria’s Secret, Gap, and Nordstrom are failing to adequately protect their brands and customers via email authentication.

Many of the organizations and businesses that have failed to use some form of email authentication standards, including SPF/Sender ID or DomainKeys Identified Email (DKIM), have become victims of forged email and online exploits. Email authentication has been widely viewed as a best practice to help reduce deceptive email and phishing exploits.

“It is incomprehensible that in this period of escalating online scams and diminishing consumer confidence these agencies and businesses continue to sit on the sidelines,” said Craig Spiezle, OTA Chairman and Founder.

“Best practices not only need to be adopted by business, but also by governmental agencies. OTA members reiterate their willingness to provide resources and assistance to these organizations.”

Hitwise has released it search engine market share data for the month of March.

Google continued to dominate, capturing 72.39 percent of all U.S. searches for the month.

Yahoo trailed with 16.36 percent of the search market share, falling 19 percent year-over-year.

MSN Search also saw its search share dip 17 percent year-over-year to grab 5.50 percent of the market.

Ask.com received 4.07 percent of the search market and dropped just one percent year-over-year.

Google was the only major search engine to see its search share increase, rising 8 percent year-over-year.

The length of search queries has increased over the past year, according to Hitwise. Longer search queries, averaging searches of five to more than eight words in length have increased 8 percent between March 2009 and March 2008.

Searches of eight or more words increased 20 percent. The same time period showed that shorter search queries – those averaging one to four words long – have decreased 2 percent. Searches of two words accounted for the majority of searches, amounting to 23.17 percent of all queries.

Search engines continue to be the most popular way Internet users navigate to key industry categories.  Comparing March 2009 with March 2008, business and finance, sports, online video and social networking categories showed double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.