Some names considered were Bing, Hook, and Kumo (Japanese for either cloud or spider depending on the character). None of them seemed to have gained any traction, however. The Yahoo transaction would have answered that, she says, as search would have been branded under the familiar Yahoo name.

One thing is certain: Microsoft needs to fix its search offering, and not through paying its users to use it. Yes, thats going to give you a short term bump, but what makes you think those users who came in through and incentive will continue to search through Microsoft when that incentive’s gone?

Regardless, the 2.0 version of the site is online as of yesterday, the first major redesign of the site since it was bought out by Yahoo all the way back in December 2005. Possibly the best thing here is the fact that they’ve finally chucked the del.icio.us domain name. I could never remember this URL to save my life.

The own company admits its URL was a problem, and acknowledges the fact in its own blog: “We’ve seen a zillion different confusions and misspellings of “del.icio.us” over the years, so moving to delicious.com will make it easier for people to find the site and share it with their friends.” (It took you almost a half-decade to realize this? )

Users will notice a cleaner design and faster loading times. More new features are also listed here.

I don’t know, but I have to agree with John Furrier here. The site needs something more… it’s just not useful to me as is. John seems to suggest to integrate it into its core services — that may be the best thing. As a standalone service, I don’t see much future in it.

Apparently its founder Joshua Schacter didn’t either. After being asked what he thought of the redesign by TechCrunch, his response: “Good luck. I hope it goes well.” Ow.