Consumer Confidential: Cyber-sales, top searches, online news

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Here’s your touch-me-Tuesday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:

--So how did Cyber Monday turn out? Not bad, thanks for asking. Market researchers say online sales were up 14% from a year before, and the typical e-shopper bought about a third more stuff than in 2008. Perhaps even more significant, the average online order was about 10% bigger than the amount of goodies people put in their shopping cart in stores on Black Friday. The biggest sellers online: Clothing and jewelry.

--The Gloved One, Michael Jackson, was Yahoo’s biggest star this year. The search provider says cyber-hunts for info about Jackson after his untimely death propelled him to the top of Yahoo’s search rankings, which it says represent a barometer of cultural tastes. In ascending to the pinnacle of Yahoo searches, Jackson displaced Britney Spears, who held the throne for four years running. But this isn’t the last word on Web searches. Google will release its own rankings later this month.

--Should you be paying for stellar blog posts such as this one? Rupert Murdoch, News Corp.’s big cheese, thinks so. He told a journalism conference in Washington that media organizations need to persuade consumers that they need to pay for news content online. ‘Good journalism is an expensive commodity,’ Murdoch said. No argument here.

-- David Lazarus