State elections Web sites are often too difficult for voters to find and use to answers questions about whether they are registered to vote, where to vote and what will be on the ballot, according to a new study by the Pew Center on States.

“State election offices have made considerable strides in getting Web sites up and running. Yet as more and more Americans seek information online, it is no longer enough for election offices merely to put information online,” said Michael Caudell-Feagan, director of Make Voting Work.

“Voters are turning to the Web with basic questions about how to cast their ballot. And our study shows that state Web sites need to do a better job in meeting those needs. There are simple things outlined in this report that every state can do to improve services and make the democratic process easier.”

The study found the average usability score for election Web sites in the 50 states and the District of Columbia to be 58 percent. Usability ranged from a high of 77 percent (Iowa) to a low of 33 percent (New Hampshire).

When using search engines such as Google, only 38 states appear as the first search term when searching for voting in a specific state. Only 34 official sate Web sites appear as the first search result when users enter their state name with “polling place.”

Thirty-four states have a poll locator tool, but only 11 states will identify a polling location for any address in the state.

Half the states including the District of Columbia (53%) offer ways for users to verify their registration online

By not improving their sties, states are missing an opportunity to save money on voter telephone help lines, which can cost up to $100 per call.

“We know that, on average, people spend less than two minutes on a Web site before they give up on their search for information,” said Kil Huh, research project director at the Pew Center on the States and a lead researcher on the report.

“Too many of the Web sites we visited included historical information, inadequate search functions and mislabeled links that may prevent locating what users need. If voters turning to the Internet can’t easily find the information they need to cast their ballots in November, it could drive up the volume of calls and, thus, costs to election officials with limited resources.”

Usponsored and professional society Web sites provide significantly higher quality information about common elective surgical procedures than commercial sponsored Web sites according to research published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

The Internet is a good resource that can help patients make better-informed treatment decision, the quality of content on health related Web sites is not monitored and studies have shown that some Web site offer inaccurate information.

More than 110 million adults in the United States have searched online for health information, and two-thirds of these patients get information through a search engine instead of directly accessing a specific Web site.

“Empowering patients with a trusted source of information will lead to better informed patients and, in turn, improved expectations of surgery outcomes,” said Clifford Ko, MD, FACS, Professor of Surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Surgeons should steer patients to high-quality medical Web sites until an accepted, widely used seal of credibility is established.”

An analyses found usponsored sites scored higher in quality, than sites sponsored by commercial organizations such as law firms and representing advertisements (50.6 percent versus 25.0 percent).

A large number of Americans still do not use basic Internet security tools and there remains a substantial gap between the protections people think they have and what is actually installed on their computers, according to a new cyber security study released by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and Symantec.

The study found more than 80 percent of Americans say they have a firewall to prevent hackers from stealing personal information installed on their computers. In reality only 42 percent had adequate firewall protection. The majority (95%) of Americans did have anti-virus software installed.

“As we begin National Cyber Security Month, this national study of America’s cyber security protections provides us with a critical baseline of understanding of how we conduct ourselves and protect ourselves online,” said NCSA Executive Director Michael Kaiser.

“Great strides have been made but our citizens, economy and national infrastructure will remain at unnecessary risk until every computer user in America has anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall software on their computers.”

The study found almost no difference between the percentage of Americans who had anti-spyware software installed (82%) and the percentage that said they had it installed (83%). Still, almost one- fifth of all users are not running adequate spyware defenses. Spam filters though are a different story. Seventy-five percent of poll respondents said they were using spam filters, compared to only 52 percent who had them installed to prevent unwanted email.

“Anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall software are the front-line basic protections that all Americans should have, and they are critical to keeping your computer, personal information and your family safe online,” said Adam Rak, senior director of public affairs for Symantec.

“To continue raising much-needed awareness around this important topic, Symantec has launched several education initiatives this year making it a priority to connect parents and educators with the resources they need to protect themselves and their family online.”

More than half (62%) of Americans who are currently employed use the Internet to email at work and they have mixed feelings about the impact technology has on their work lives according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The positives are the increased connectivity and flexibility that the Internet gives them at work but the downside is many workers say the Internet has added stress and new demands to their lives.

The survey found that the overwhelming majority (96%) of workers use the Internet, email or have a cell phone for some purpose in their lives. Eighty percent say these technologies have improved their ability to do their job.

Close to three quarters (73%) say these technologies have improved their ability to share ideas with co-workers. More than half (58%) say these tools have allowed them more flexibility in the hours they work.

Just under half (49%) say these technologies increase the level of stress in their job and 49 percent these technologies make it harder for them to disconnect from their work whne they are at home and on the weekends. Forty-six percent say these tools increase demands that they work more hours.

“American workers have a love-hate relationship with technology,” said Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist with the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and co-author of the report.

“Along with the benefits of increased connectivity comes a host of new issues into workers’ lives. How do you strike a work-life balance when you are always reachable by the boss? What counts as overtime work when you are ‘on the clock’ at all hours? How much personal online browsing can you do while you are sitting in your cubicle? These challenges pervade many work places today.”

Even with economic turmoil throughout most of this year, the majority of online retailers remain cautiously optimistic about how their businesses will perform in the next 12 months.

The majority (72%) of online retailers believe that the online channel is better suited to weather an economic slowdown than offline channels, according to The State of Retailing Online 2008, from Shop.org conducted by Forrester Research.

“Internet retailers have good reason for optimism as budget-focused shoppers head to the web for value and convenience,” said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org. “Online retailers are well-positioned to make the best of a potentially lean holiday season.”

Thirty-five percent of online retailers surveyed said they expect their online business to perform better than expected in the next 12 months and 33 percent believe their online business will perform the same as expected.

This optimistic outlook is mainly due to past results. According to the report, 81 percent of online retailers said their ecommerce business was profitable in 2007, and 75 percent were also more profitable last year than in 2006.

Close to half (49%) of online retailers said their average conversion rate in 2007 was higher than in 2006, and that 36 percent of total sales for online retailers were due to repeat customers. Because of their outlook for the US economy, 37 percent of survey respondents indicated that they’ve lowered their expectations for their online business performance in the next 12 months.

“Although the online sales growth rate will be lower than in years’ past because of lowered consumer confidence and credit working against all of retail, the good news is that this growth will still outpace nearly every other sector of consumer spending,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, Forrester Research principal analyst and lead author of the report.

“Given that the web appears to be a preferred channel for many consumers during an economic downturn, retailers would be well served to provide offers that motivate customers to buy, and to encourage the online channel to drive sales in a channel-agnostic manner in order to provide benefits to the entire business.”

The majority (69%) of online Americans use webmail services, store data online or use software programs whose functionality is online, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

 By doing so these users are making use of cloud computing which allows them to access data through any Internet enabled device. Users who take advantage of cloud applications say they like the convenience of having access to data on any Internet enabled device.

 “Even as large numbers of users turn to ‘cloud computing’ applications, many may lack a full understanding of possible consequences of storing personal data online,” said John B. Horrigan, Associate Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project and author of the report.

 “These findings give consumers, the technology community, and policymakers a chance to discuss the trade offs between convenience and privacy and figure out where there are needs for education to improve public understanding.”

 More than half (56%) of Internet users use online services such as Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo Mail. Thirty-four percent store personal photos online and 29 percent use online applications such as Google Documents or Adobe Photoshop Express.

 More than half (51%) of Internet users who have done clued computing say the main reason they do is it is easy and convenient. Forty-one percent say a major reason they use cloud applications is that they like being able to access their data from whatever computer they are using.

Most peoples reactions to marketing and advertising messages on their mobile phones is initially often negative, a recent survey from ABI research found that responsiveness can be improved through incentives.

Thirty-seven percent of those who have received text advertisements have indicated they are more likely to respond to advertising if the message they received offered an incentive such as a retail coupon or a free song or ringtone, compared to 11 percent who said such incentives had no impact.

“We think that in general, advertisers and operators must tread carefully when delivering marketing messages to a consumer’s mobile handset, especially given that many subscribers believe they are paying a significant amount of money for their mobile services,” says research director Michael Wolf.

“However, we believe that marketing and advertising messaging that is properly crafted and that utilizes incentives could enjoy more acceptance on the part of the consumer.”

Incentives that received the most positive response were real-world discounts and coupons for retail stores. Sixty-percent of those were either neutral or open to text message marketing offering a discounted coupon at a local retailer as the incentive they would most likely respond to. The nest most popular incentives were free ringtone and songs.

“As more content and applications move through both messaging systems and browsers, advertisers are going to need to consider how best to package advertising,” said Wolf.

“We believe that most consumers will ultimately be amenable to limited marketing on their mobile phones, particularly that which is non-intrusive, targeted, and that can bring them some kind of value in the form of both real-world and digital media-based incentives.”

Daily online traffic on the Web site of China’s largest broadcaster surpassed that of the top U.S. broadcaster and online channel during the Olympics, according to WebTrends Analytics.

Driven by national pride and massive growth in Internet adoption in China, CCTV.com, the state run broadcaster attracted more than 100 million unique visitors during the 2008 Olympic Games. The site had an average of more than 6 million unique visitors per day.

NBC averaged 4.3 million unique users a day on its Olympics Web site. Yahoo also had online coverage of the games averaging 4.7 million users pr day.

“The Beijing Olympics marked the coming of age for the Internet in China,” said Alex Yoder, CEO of WebTrends, a  provider of web analytics and online marketing solutions.

“CCTV.com attracted more than 100 million online visitors for the Olympic Games by providing the right content at the right time for a large and ever-growing online audience.”

CCTV.com had an increase of more than 2.5 minutes in the average time each visitor remained on the site, reaching 11.5 minutes during the games.

The opening ceremonies on August 8 generated the most traffic on a single day with 8.5 million visits.

The busiest hour of online traffic was from 11 a.m. to noon August 18. Close to 900,000 visitors went online to watch Chinese athlete Liu Xiang race.

Global online video revenue is on track to surpass $4.5 billion by 2012, up from $1.2 billion in 2008 according to research firm In-Stat.

Purchased/rented videos will offer the most growth for online video short term, primarily due to an increase in subscription services such as Netflix, which charges a flat monthly fee to deliver DVDs and online content that can be viewed on TV sets. Ad supported professional video from major TV networks will become a solid revenue contributor by 2012.

“What is now seen as a predominantly younger pastime will spread to encompass a wider group of people, in part due to the aging of current online video viewers, but also as a result of word of mouth, spread of services, growth of in-home networks, and new network-connected consumer electronic devices,” says Gerry Kaufhold, In-Stat analyst.

“The survey data in a recent In-Stat report indicates that over half of consumers actually still prefer packaged goods, which bodes well for Blu-ray discs. Surprisingly, younger people who regularly watch online were the group that expressed the highest interest in owning a package goods bundle that includes artwork and extra content.”

By 2012, 39 percent of adults in the U.S. will have purchased or rented online video. Fifty-four percent of U.S. consumers still prefer physical discs when buying movies or TV shows.

By 2012, In-Stat predicts that 90 percent of U.S. households will have access to broadband, with 94 percent of these individuals viewing online video

Google sites remained in the top spot for online properties in July, reaching 141.6 million Americans during the month, while Yahoo sites trailed with 140.3 million and Microsoft sites took the third position with 120.2 million visitors according to comScore Media Metrix.

A number of travel categories saw gains in July as Americans went on summer vacations. The travel category increased 10 percent to 12.7 million visitors, making it the top-gaining category for the month. The travel information category grew 7 percent to 47.6 million visitors.

Despite a sluggish retail economy in the U.S., several retail categories saw traffic increases in July, due to consumers shopping online instead of using expensive gas to drive to stores. Retail consumer good sites increased 8 percent to 22.5 million visitors.

With the release of a number of summer blockbusters, retail ticket sites grew 5 percent to more than 44 million visitors as movie fans purchased tickets online to avoid long lines and sell outs at theaters.

“The summer months tend to draw Americans to more leisure pursuits and that was certainly the case in July,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix.

“Ground travel and cruise sites gained once again, as many Americans sought more budget-friendly ways to enjoy their summer vacations amid economic and fuel price concerns. Summer blockbusters and big celebrity news also provided a boost to the entertainment categories.”